First the good news:
I was able to get the mailstation to
handshake with my linux box over a direct
connection between two modems. This means
that I should be able to use the mailstation
without having to dial up to any machine,
I can just plug it in and "sync" it with
my linux box. Here's how I did it:
SETUP:
Linux box:
- went into minicom
mailstation:
- Main Menu >> Extras >> Settings
- "Ignore dial tone when dialing" = Yes
hardware:
- plugged in a phone line from the
Linux box's modem "Line" port to the
mailstation "Line" port.
Now to get them talking PPP I just hit
the "Get Email" button on the mailstation,
and type "ATA" in the minicom terminal.
It takes a bit of practice, but eventually
they do connect and the mail station
goes from "connecting" to "logging in".
On the minicom side, it starts spitting
out PPP output. I "quit minicom without
hanging up" and can now type "pppd" to
initiate a ppp connection between the
two machines.
I don't have all the settings quite right
yet so the process doesn't complete. But
at this point, they are physically talking,
it should be just a matter of settings
before the ppp connection is working.
So this is cool, and gets me closer
to writing email on my mailstation
and sync'ing it with my linux box. Without
actually dialing up anywhere.
Now the bad news:
When I turned on my new mailstation it
asked me for some settings of stuff.
I took a guess at some of them but
wasn't completely happy with them
(things like user name, smtp server,
etc.). When I try to edit the user
info it only lets me change the name,
dial-up number and the reply-to. ARGH.
In a desperate attempt to get back
to empty values, I did a "reset all data",
which made things even worse!
Now I have one user, "New User", and a bunch
of random settings for mailstation which
are totally useless.
Any ideas on how to reset these values???
Do I need to buy a new mailstation --
I didn't realize these were one-use disposable items 
.
Thanks,
Ben
