I always found it curious that the E-messages out there are branded to specific (usually telco) service providers, yet provide anyone access to any ISP.
It appears that this is a new thing.
http://public.pacbell.net/emessage/faq.html#2
claims that the ISP is as fixed and unmalleable as any MIVO at target. Yet my little Pacific Bell -branded refurb has no problem dialing up Earthlink. Somewhere along the line they must have reflashed the rom to allow the machines for a dead service to work with just anyone in an attempt to clear them out.
Which leads one to question where on the board the software settings are stored and who here has the hardware to read them?
Maybe this doesn't get us significantly closer to understanding the mysterious box, but at least we now know that it is being done.
And plus, in 5 years we can look forward to checking our own ISP's with a much more stylish Mivo 150... After all reading the specs sheet the MIVO 150, 200, Mailstation black, and Mailstation cream are all the same machine. Why not use the pretty one? Especially if we can flash the rom from one to the other or, barring intimate knowledge of how the parallel port works, just move the flash memory chip from one board to the other.
BTW, would anyone be willing to call up Pacific Bell, claim to have an old mailstation in need of converting to work without the Pac Bell ISP, and ask for information on how to do such a thing yourself?
