Iridium OS X Modem Script
So, Iridium doesn't offer support for Mac OS X, but I was asked if it would be possible under virtual
PC. I tried, and was able to make it work using Win2k, the Keyspan USA-19QW adapter, and mapping COM1
in VPC to the Keyspan adapter in the Mac environment. Subsequently, I was
asked by someone else who heard I'd gotten it going to set it up for him. I purchased the Keyspan
USA-19HS for this, and it didn't work. Bugger. In the process of troubleshooting, Iridium support said
to remove any USB to Serial adapters and use a straight serial port (which of course can't be done
on a Mac, but I wasn't telling them about the Mac, heh) as they have had trouble with them. I tried
my 19QW and it worked(so there's something wonky with the 19HS). However, in the same communication they also sent some documentation for
getting PPP up and running, and using this I was able to create a modem script for OS X which seems to
work quite well. I have now tested this with both the 19QW and 19HS adapters with no issues, and with
both the Motorla 9500 and 9505 Iridium phones thanks to the folks at Wright Technologies. Other serial adapters may work; if you use this with one
let me know and I'll update this page with that information.
So, here's the modem script. Download this, and put it in /Library/Modem Scripts. Once it's there,
Make sure your Keyspan software is installed, and configure the Keyspan port to use the script.
Set your Dialup number to 008816000023, and you're sorted.
Use Internet Connect to dial as usual. Note
that data speeds on Iridium are the suck, so you probably don't want to go surfing sites with lots
of images (google is a good test site since there's bugger all images). If you're going to surf,
best to turn off images. In Safari it's Preferences:Appearance, unclick "dispaly images when the page opens". Also, I understand airtime is $1.50us/min so you'll probably want to just grab mail and get
offline. But it's your cash, if you wanna download flash movies it'll work; just super slow. Any
questions or comments, drop me a line, ed at hintz dot org.
Special thanks to the following for helping to make it happen:
Antonio Flores Aldama, and his Modem Script Generator
This page was last updated 1 Nov, 2004