VOGONS


First post, by MRVFONE

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Hello all,

Does anyone know if there is a old dial up modem firmware archive web site or anything similar?

I have searched around, But only found firmware for newer modems like ADSL etc.... Noting for old dial up modems

I thought someone in here may know.

Thanks, T.

Reply 2 of 9, by MRVFONE

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Hello,
I wasn't hopeful for much... but i thought there might be like a retro web site to preserve eproms and flash chips from dial up modems somewhere. But considering that hardly anyone uses them.. and lack of analogue telephone lines in most places.... I can see why many would not be interested in doing a archive site somewhere....
Thanks for the help 😀 T.

Reply 3 of 9, by darry

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MRVFONE wrote on 2025-08-06, 02:48:

Hello,
I wasn't hopeful for much... but i thought there might be like a retro web site to preserve eproms and flash chips from dial up modems somewhere. But considering that hardly anyone uses them.. and lack of analogue telephone lines in most places.... I can see why many would not be interested in doing a archive site somewhere....
Thanks for the help 😀 T.

If you don't me asking, what is your use case/interest ?

Do you wish to actual use a dial-up modem and are looking for the most recent firmware for it ?

Do you want to explore/analyze older modem firmware simply for curiosity's sake ?

Something else ?

Reply 5 of 9, by MRVFONE

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Newer versions of firmware would be very interesting. They would help with testing modems etc. The main reason would be to fix specific modems. I have had a few where the flash chip has lost/be corrupted etc. So i have a eprom burner etc.. which i use a lot. So that would be a big help there.

I have been collecting dial up modems for quite a few years. In the end i would like to have a real modem on my BBS that i'm going to build again. I ran a BBS back in the mid 90's. I love retro computing ALOT.. so it will be a fun project 😀

T.

Reply 6 of 9, by darry

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MRVFONE wrote on 2025-08-06, 10:28:

Newer versions of firmware would be very interesting. They would help with testing modems etc. The main reason would be to fix specific modems. I have had a few where the flash chip has lost/be corrupted etc. So i have a eprom burner etc.. which i use a lot. So that would be a big help there.

I have been collecting dial up modems for quite a few years. In the end i would like to have a real modem on my BBS that i'm going to build again. I ran a BBS back in the mid 90's. I love retro computing ALOT.. so it will be a fun project 😀

T.

Thank you for the extra context.

If you want to use vintage modems for a BBS and restore said modems in general, I understand.

I doubt many people here collect dial-up modems. I had a "fascination" with them that extended well past their heyday. As a consequence, I still have a few dial-up modems, mainly external serial ones. Almost all are USR branded and are upgraded to v.90 or v.92.

AFAIK, the fastest on e could get if setting up a BBS would be v.34bis connectivity, unless one manages to get something like a decommissioned modem bank from an ISP and convinces a telco to lease the kind of line required for that bank to inteface to the telephone network digitally.

That being said, I wonder if it might be possible to tap into a VOIP ATA that allows disabling compression and somehow hooking up something like a modem bank (that can modulate 56K through its digital uplink). There was a thread about using a fax or modem over VOIP a while back.

Barring having a special setup, v.34bis is the most that can be expected. I suspect that most any consumer modem that was released beyond the late 90s and was 56K capable probably had v.34bis firmware that was quite stable. Even v.90/v.92 implementation probably fossilized not much later.

That being said, if you need firmware dumps from specific old modems, you might get lucky by asking around here, but I would not expect many people here to much of a modem collection.

Best of luck on the BBS project.

Reply 7 of 9, by MRVFONE

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With VoIP there is several FAX standards you can try and use with modems. My hope is one of them may work.I'm not hopeing for any fast speeds.. Faxes were around 9600/14400 in there day.
I did not know.. but there was a fax standard for 33.6 as well.. but it happened way late in the process.

I'm going to get 2 ports for VoIP here... that way 2 modems can call them selfs.. and i can start doing testing etc....

T.

Reply 8 of 9, by maxtherabbit

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You can get VoiP gateways with BRI or PRI and connect an ISDN modem to get v.90/92 dialup going

Reply 9 of 9, by darry

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Nice to know there are still ways to get the full dial-up experience in 2025.

Thanks!