List of Australian Modem Manufacturers

Communications
35

I’m the same person that posted on Mastodon. Thanks @poddmo for the link to the forum.

FWIW:

  • Sysop of Cafe Chrome BBS (that ran from 1988-1996)
  • Used to work for Brathstray (which was the company that took over all the holdings of Sendata when it went broke, run out of the same building in Oakleigh) doing QA on new modems and repairing old ones (from the exceedingly rare 2400 bps acoustic coupler that Sendata made, their insane 2400 bps modem that was ASCII menu driven and effectively had a terminal program built into it, plus a number of the dial up/fixed line modems used for ATMs/banks), so I’m familiar with their entire range of modems (though I don’t have any sorry).
  • Ran test modems purchased for a sysop discount on the BBS for Interlink (firmware upgrades from 9600 V.32, eventually up to 16.8k) and Saruman (basically just giving it a robust workout).

Regarding the Saruman: I don’t have that many details anymore, but the company was based in Northcote or something from memory. I don’t think they made many of them. They didn’t have much in the way of venting in the case, so they used to overheat when the ambient temp went over 30 deg C. I used to run it with the top of the case off and with a fan pointing at it (it was sold to me as a special deal, to be used for the BBS, and I gave them feedback on the design, etc).

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I don’t have the InterLink modem anymore. They were in St Kilda, (Upstairs of 117-119 Fitzroy St), and I regularly took the modem in there for firmware upgrades.

Another Australian modem I have is the Datacraft Quadcrafts (2400 bps, MNP3/4/5) that have more LEDs on them than the Saruman (a total of 12 behind membrane buttons, and even more as status lights)! I had 4 of these hooked up to the BBS (started with 4 lines, ended up with 8 just before closing it down), and they lasted the entire time without a complaint. Still got 3 of these sitting around.

Datacraft was based in Mooroolbark. Eventually sold to Dimension Data.

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Note: I put the feet on the Datacrafts that way so I could get more space on the desk I had everything on).

Will follow up with internal pics of both. I also have a Netcomm Trailblazer (the rebadged American Telebit Trailblazer), if that is of interest?

PS: I’ll reach out to a few old contacts from then and see if anyone else has info of note on some other Australian manufacturers.

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