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IA-1 internal modem and linux?
Gathering information on the IA-1 internal modem, in hopes of making it useful in linux.

New MessageIA-1 internal modem and linux? (modified 0 times) foresto
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Although I'm using broadband at my house, it occurs to me that making the IA-1 a gift for grandma would require that it connect to the net through its modem. Rumor has it that said modem is a winmodem, with a Lucent chipset. Can anyone confirm this, and tell us exactly which chip is used? (I'll disassemble mine again if I have to, but I'll bet one of you wrote that information down last time yours was open.)

I read a post last night that claimed the modem drivers from this page would work: http://www.zdsftp.com/support/drv/cat281.html Those drivers are for the NEC Versa AX (K6-2) laptop. I noticed a couple of interesting strings in the setup files for those drivers: LT_WIN_MODEM-A3C4 and LT_WIN_MODEM_GLOBAL-5B8F. This gives me the impression that we're dealing with a Lucent LT series modem chip. If that's true, we might be able to use the vendor-supplied binary drivers. (Aegere Systems apparently has Lucent's modem chips now.)

Here are some relevant sites:
http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/
http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/Ltmodem.html
http://linmodems.org/
http://www.dwrees.co.uk/linmodem.php
http://www.physcip.uni-stuttgart.de/heby/ltmodem/

12-18-2001 13:39:33

New MessageRE:IA-1 internal modem and linux? (modified 0 times) ranman
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Foresto,
It is definitely a winmodem. And it is a lucent chip of the LT series AFAIK - I am fairly sure. I can't tell you what chip it is though. Various programs I have used to try to tell me haven't come up with much other than what you have already know.
I currently use the (reference?) lt modem driver 5.49 and version 5.84 also worked - I guess this is what you mean by the vendor-supplied binary drivers??? However, 'PCI communications device' still appears in the system devices so even though it works, it isn't fully correct.


ranman

12-18-2001 19:36:35

New MessageRE:IA-1 internal modem and linux? (modified 0 times) foresto
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When I say "vendor-supplied binary drivers", I mean that Lucent has released linux drivers for the LT winmodems, but only in precompiled form, and only for a few specific versions of linux. AFAIK, they haven't released the source code for the DSP module. If we had the source code, we could compile those drivers for whatever version of linux we like.
12-18-2001 20:00:38

New MessageRE:IA-1 internal modem and linux? (modified 0 times) bittmann
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I've been messing around a bit with the linmodems.org quasi-driver. Having limited success.

Seems to be some sort of problem with the version detection in the serial driver...but it insmods just fine if you "-f"orce it in.

If you're using a 2.4.17 kernel (I'm basing my starting point on Rasmus' image (http://php2.chek.com/~rasmus)), you might want to look at:
http://home.kscable.com/lbittle/ia1 for a pair of modules that *just might work*.

Short instructions: Get a 2.4.17 system up, get these modules where you can get to 'em, and do

insmod -f /path/to/module/lt_modem.o
and
insmod -f /path/to/module/lt_serial.o

Assuming /devfs, etc. (Rasmus' image!), you should then have what appears to be a modem on /dev/ttySLT0. Else, read the docs in the accompanying tarball.

Note: As of this time, I have not attempted to dial out...I've just 'catted' to-and-from the device, looking at the pretty "AT" commands. If someone actually gets around to testing this before I do, *please* post your results here!

As I mentioned, I've included the tarball that started me down the path...so go ahead and fix what I broke--and make this useful!

bittmann

12-27-2001 15:52:58

New MessageRE:IA-1 internal modem and linux? (modified 0 times) bittmann
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Nothing outstanding to report thus far...I have been able to prod the internal modem into generating appropriate noise...but as I'm broadband-only and don't have easy access to a dialup ppp account, I'm somewhat limited in what I've been able to do as of yet.

Hint: On vc #1, do "cat /dev/ttySLT0", and on vc#2, do "echo [cmd] > /dev/ttySLT0". ATA makes all the right noises...

(Loud little bugger, isn't it?! You can use "mixer" to control the phin/phout levels)

Need to find my old slackware disk and fire up an appropriately-linked version of "minicom" to really test this out.

bittmann

12-28-2001 14:04:20

New MessageRE:IA-1 internal modem and linux? (modified 0 times) tedium
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The modem works! I am writing this message from my IA-1, using minicom.
I inserted the two modules described above (insmod lt_modem.o; insmod -f lt_serial.o). Used the binary minicom from a SuSe 6.4 distribution, which runs fine on jailbait without any additional libraries. The only additional step was to make a symlink (ln -s /dev/ttySLT0 /dev/modem). Accessed my dialup shell account at 45 kbps.
Haven't gotten ppp to work yet--there seem to be problems negotiating the asyncmap. But, since the modem works, that is probably only a configuration problem.
01-21-2002 20:26:45

New MessageRE:IA-1 internal modem and linux? (modified 0 times) bittmann
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Super! Glad to hear that it actually works. Please let us know if you get ppp working...and think about making a quick "howto" if it's easy enough.

At any rate, it's good to know that my efforts actually paid off!

bittmann

01-28-2002 20:27:37

New MessageRE:IA-1 internal modem and linux? (modified 0 times) td123
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Can you please post your howto at PJohnston's WIKI: http://www.knipster.net/wiki/index.php/Compaq%20IA-1
01-29-2002 21:22:31

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