Dial-up internet without the dial-up?

[Mqark]

So, let's suppose I found an internet on your TV Set-Top-Box that was expecting to dial 0845 601 3724 to connect to BT Click and I wanted to see if I could get it onto the internet today WITHOUT a land line.

Is there some way to connect this set-top-box to a bridging device that convinces it it's connected to an ISP and then allow it to freely surf whatever page it's capable of rendering after 8 hours of downloading?

[ThetaReactor]

Making your own ISP is very possible. You'll need a modem, a Linux computer, and a telephone company.

The first is easy, but you will want a real, external modem. Not some bogus winmodem card.

The computer bit requires very little power, so a Pi or equivalent is fine.

The Telco will either be a PBX that does it all, or an ATA device that allows you to plug into the PC and run a software PBX.

The only concern I'd have is whether the STB is expecting some sort of proprietary handshake or proxy services from the ISP. Like, my fiber modem died unexpectedly last week, and I discovered that an Amazon Fire TV stick won't even load its home menu without an internet connection. It took fiddling to get it to launch VLC so I could watch locally stored videos. Or the old Danger Hiptop proto-smartphones, which relied on custom proxy servers that stripped and compressed web pages to minimize bandwidth usage. BUT, if your little web tv box is a fully-fledged computer capable of speaking standard protocols, the private ISP trick will work. And then you can use it for playing Dreamcast games on the internet and shitposting on BBSes from your Tandy 100.

Intructions, mon amigo: https://dogemicrosystems.ca/wiki/Dial_up_server

[WiteWulf]

Technically it's possible to do the telephony side of this, but you'll almost certainly be disappointed to find that the STB has no, or outdated, SSL support and won't connect to any modern websites.

[Mqark]

Technically it's possible to do the telephony side of this, but you'll almost certainly be disappointed to find that the STB has no, or outdated, SSL support and won't connect to any modern websites.

I'm fully expecting to have very little actually work!

I'll be happy if I can see something - even if it's the most basic site. The main point to to verify that the box still "works" when it comes to web browsing.

@ThetaReactor - thanks for the description. I'll see what I can do with hardware modems USB for Linux on Raspberry Pi and a phone line simulator.

[WiteWulf]

This could be useful:
https://york.hackspace.org.uk/blog/simu ... hone-line/

You used to be able to buy line simulators, but they're not easy to come by these days (you're looking at £100+ on flabby).

Once you get the device talking to a modem, though, you're gonna have some work to do figuring out what the STB wants to hear back. I'm guessing it'll be expecting some sort of SLIP or PPP connection. Guessing the vintage of the STB (early 00s?) you want to try and find a copy of NT4 or Win2k server and trying to get it to talk to the RAS component of those OSes.