Thank you for your video, it helped a lot while I was replicating this for my own Motorolas and I find your videos a joy to watch. I didn't have a vintage PC to use, but making use of a DB9 serial to USB adapter worked fine when passed through to DOSBOX on a modern system. I didn't have to patch anything and have been using the ASIM emulator clone card to unlock my phones (An MR1 and MR601 locked to Orange UK) and use them again once more. I'm from the UK, so we still have GSM900 and 1800 networks in operation and the phones remain fully functional. If anyone wants to replicate this, I'd recommend the following tips: Use a modern SIM as your base, as these cards are much thinner and flexible making it easier to slide into the phone with the added thickness of the adapter. 5k1 resistors work fine in place of the 4k7 resistors with both of my Motorola units, but your mileage may vary and oddities / damage may occur. Finally, if you get stuck where only test mode works through the ASIM emulator, it's likely you just need to load the clone card and then use the clone menu option in ASIM to initiate clone mode rather than just loading the SIM like you would with the test card.
That is awesome you were able to get this to work with DOSbox and USB to serial. I hadn't considered this possibility. Thank you for sharing your experience and tips on this. And well done on getting your phones to work again. Your comment made my day, thank you.
@@JanusCycle - Geez... the size of that full sized sim card. lol I only heard about it, in the US I've never seen one, always been using the mini size from the beginning. I still have one of those "white" test cards with IMSI 000-010xxx, great for testing purposes.
I was The Android, back in the day i made The Asim Emulator back in 1998, is amazing than 25 years after you got it working on a old StarTac Phone. The trickiest thing was to conect to the SIM socket. Back in the day i was working on a company manufacturing SmardCard Readers and i made my own PCB of the size of a SmartCard with only the exposed pads to the ISO7816 contacts routed to the border of the PCB where i was soldering a flat cable with an IDC8pins connector on the other side.
Welcome good sir, thank you for your work. You helped many people everywhere learn about how SIM cards operate. I hope you got a kick out of seeing your software appear on UA-cam in 2023. I would love to hear your thoughts about that time in history, or any other perspectives you wish to share.
Nice to see you around here! When I saw the contraption my first idea was also to just buy a PCB on JLC or PCBWay or something. Maybe all those years in you could open source the emulator for everyone's benefit? :-)
It’s truly amazing what the UA-cam comment section has to offer sometimes! Great to hear from the guy who wrote the software for fun and to help others out for free, I really miss those times of the internet.. Btw. Are you german @Lord Olaf? The DOS prompt gave a German reply.
I absolutely loved that you used another incorrect connector to build an adapter rather than building a whole new cable... that was a really smart solution
@@alfredoibarra9825 UA-cam puts ads on videos. He might or might not be monetized even UA-cam will still put ads. Its not 2015 when people could chose if their videos have or don't have ads.
Those phones were sold together with fixed car phones in a bundle. The ones in the car had a higher output, and a roof antenna so they would work in places with less coverage. The car phones used the big SIM card format, so to make it easier to transfer, they used the big cards also in the startac. (source: me, selling and servicing car phones around 2000 for PTT/KPN telecom)
I had a startac timeport when I was 16 in '99. I loved that phone. The neon green screen was awesome. Best phone at that time. My mom was so pissed, "the only people that have cell phones are doctors and drug dealers" she yelled at me. Lol. Life was so good back then.
I remember my friend and I had phones when we were like 15 probably in 2000 and someone on the bus said "those kids must be drug dealers with those cell phones!" LMAO now every kid has a phone
This is such a fun trip down memory lane. I didn’t have a chance to mess around with the StarTac phones, but I spent a LOT of time editing memory dumps of my Motorola e815 and my Motorola KRZR back around 2005-2007. I remember being SO annoyed with Verizon here in the states and how they disabled features or (like in the case of the KRZR) how they put their own custom UI on it instead of the native Motorola UI. With the help of Internet forums and questionable software, I was able to enable hidden features, turn on disabled features, and load up different firmwares from Canadian carriers to get my Moto UI back like I wanted it. There was nothing quite like the rush of editing memory dumps bit by bit then holding your breath as you hit the write button hoping that it booted and didn’t break the device (while hoping the feature you wanted was enabled!) I recently got into playing with SDRs and getting a couple of AMPS phones back up and running on my own mini network, but I may have to add a couple of these StarTac handhelds to my 2G test networks! Thanks for the video - this was a cool find!
Absolutely loving the jankiness of the point-to-point soldered male to female serial adapter you made after you realized you used the wrong connector. amazing!
I have been glued to your channel for the last few hours, every video is just nostalgic. Thanks for bringing back the memories of how i and my friend were used to tweaking these phones back then.
Your videos are amazing! Too bad vintage phones are forgotten, but those were definitely made when technology was fun. Good ol' times of the Nokia DCT-3 and the Siemens S3x and S4x :D
2G is still in use in Central Europe with the plan of shutting down no earlier than 2028. We shut down 3G networks rather than 2G in the effort of making space for 5G as there's a significant number of users with 2G phones (I assume old people) while 3G never really took off around here.
In the days a little before, phones used analogue transmission with digital codes for cell routing etc. Some shitty newspaper had a radio scanner and caught Prince Charles exchanging naughty words with Camilla. All completely unencrypted. The other thing was, people would set up premium-rate phone lines. Then they'd go out and wander through town with a receiver picking up, I think, ESN and MIN codes ("pairs"). They were transmitted by phones as part of the protocol, unencrypted, and the network trusted you were who you said you were. So they'd hack phones and put in these pairs, cloning the phones whose signals they received earlier. A cloned phone is on somebody else's phone bill. I saw a TV report, a wall with dozens of phones mounted to it, all on chargers, and all cloned. Ringing up the premium rate number in another county. Racking up a fortune in bills. But because it was a foreign country, the home nation (Britain) couldn't do anything to force a refund. The foreign telco and the pirate split the profits. A lovely little earner, and all you had to do was hang round a metropolitan train station for a bit while your gadget filled up with pairs. When it was full, you go home with your haul. They made a ton. Of course this was when only rich wankers owned mobile phones, back in dinosaur times, so little sympathy. Usually their carrier refunded them and copped the bill themselves. International phone agreements mean bills must be paid!
Takes me back, had one in 1998. Loved the little pull out antenna. I remember looking at the little battery pack and thinking I wonder if in the future they can integrate a pager that can hook on the back of your phone thinking “wouldn’t that be a great idea”, so I wouldn’t have to carry my separate pager! Lol
Releasing 2 videos simultaneously is a bit of a bold move (I've heard that multiple releases within a day can affect whether subs see the video). But considering you've got call to actions in both it makes sense.
UA-cam says they optimize what you see to give the viewer the best experience. That's a good sentiment if true. So if both videos are worth watching, then that's the most important thing to me.
@@JanusCycle can you create some type of device that can output a 1x,2g, or 3G signal but connects to 4G or 5G? It would be cool to make a call on a retro phone
I miss that phone, made me feel badass when I used it. I can't tell how many times I would just pretend to use it for a call to show off, pulling up that antenna just gave u a feeling of coolness
I love that this is relatable to modern day phones. Samsung also just removed some hidden menus like the band selector from their phones requiring a shell exploit to access now.
There's a program called SamTool that enables RF Test mode (*#73#) on Samsung phones via AT commands over the "diag" usb mux. It's an enormously usefull dialer code once enabled. The system uid shell exploit is awesome too because it gives read access to all the phone's battery stats listed under /sys/class/power_supply/battery like # of cycles and even # of times the usb-c plug has been used lol
@coreybabcock2023 Give it another shot! I just used it on a sm-n9860 and a sm-s901u1 and it really does enable *#73# | The program was apparently given an update because both phones were able to enable RF Test pretty much instantly the process works the first attempt now.
I had a play with these Motorola SIM card emulators a few years ago and changed the graphic on a M3788 and enabled the Engineering menu on a V3688. It was quite fun wandering around with it looking at the figures. I didn't bother making a fancy "SIM Card" like you did, I just used crocodile clips to clip onto the sim socket. Your solution looks a bit more elegant.
@@JanusCycle The V3688 is a cool device. The sounds quality is good and the holographic reflector they used in the screen is really neat. Unfortunately its all plastic clipped together construction makes it a bit flimsy - a bit reminiscent of today's smartphones! These old GSM Motorolas would be quite usable today if it weren't for issues with their SMS support. They only seem to support the 7 bit GSM character set and some people will send messages with non-GSM characters, in which case the phone will refuse to display the whole message, whereas Nokias and Erricsons will just ignore the dodgy characters. I've no idea what characters people sent me in order to cause this; probably just those pesky smileys :).
When I was little, I had one of these, at the time my brother's girlfriend worked in a telecommunications conglomerate, as a telemarketing attendant. She had access and enabled a line for this phone for a few years, but my version did not come with this SIM port, it was already integrated into the device. Nice video =)
I had this phone back in the days. I wish someone could make a Bluetooth version that could connect to my iPhone just for calls and texts. That would be amazing! 🤔
I think it might be possible by hooking the SIM emulator to something like Raspberry Pi Zero W and running ASIM on DOSBox. The real challenge though is to write a program that handles Bluetooth connections and translates them for ASIM.
what is interesting is that over here (in germany) when you order a sim card or get sent one, it comes in that full size form factor w/ the breakout tabs so technically, if it wasnt for the shutdown of the network, you could use a startak to this day using a modern simcard
it's GMS, SMS, full phone, the sim card doing a lot on the heavy lifting, thing SIM card on the phone like phone book telephone number, and all SMS (email) massaging was all handled by the sim card, just taking your sim card of of your phone, them placing it different phone moved your phone book, and all your massages too, to that phone not just your phone number, the sim card is a little computer (CPU,MEMORY,STORAGE,PROGRAMS all the bit that make computer) in it own right it not just simple memory card, the phone is of not (sort of terminal, and power supply, and radio transmitter/receiver ), to access the real phone that is really the sim card?
It was the same here in Australia until the networks were shutdown in 2019 (At least for telstra). Afterwards, they immediately shrunk the size of the plastic knock-out as no phones which utilize full size sims would still have a network available to them
What a thoroughly interesting watch. Regarding your issues with the timing of ASIM, I was interested to see how it was solved. I had a similar issue with erroneous operation of Motorola software used to program Syntrx radios. My solution was to run the software on a 486DX, that I had stashed away. Seemed to work nicely.
One of the greatest videos on youtube. Really appreciate the time and effort you spend making these videos. Totally recommending your channel on people around me. Please keep uploading such great content!
@@JanusCycle I have a siemens cell phone from this same year and it has a bigger card then this to. It has omni point as the provider. The sim card goes on the back. .
This brings back so much memory.. I used to own the StarTAC 70/80/90 and StarTAC X phones back in the day.. the latter which uses a smaller sized SIM instead.. and also a few variants of the MicroTAC models. Love them.. big bricks 😅
Glad the algorithm brought me here. I remember doing something similar to my 5110 back in the day. Also reminded me of unlocking the first iphone with some physical SIM addons. Dont remember how they were called even.
Uploading a modified bootup logo onto the LCD display of my 2G phone that I had sourced from suspect websites used to be great fun back in the day. Thanks so much for sharing. 😉👌🏻
The combination of "The Android" and "Turbo Pascal" gives me an eerie feeling that I might actually know the person in charge for that nice emulator tool, even though we met in a completely different industry of things :P
StarTAC geeze i miss those, they were awesome! Love the old laptop to, i still have a few 486 and pent 1 laptops to program my old motorola twoway radio stuff :)
My Dad loved his Startac phones. When he'd get a new one, it was my job to manually input contact details from one to the other, in the car, getting motion sickness. Bloody Narc. Anyhow, this ability to clone from phone to phone would have been really useful.
An idea: you might be able to cut between the contacts and/or microwave a full sized card for a few seconds (to fry the intenals), check with a continuity meter that tnere is no continuity between pads a d simply solder directly to the pads on the dummy card. Also you might use a loyalty/gift card from a shop.
Mate and I both had one of these back in the day. Both at some stage started to have issues recognising the sim card. And my mates friend also had the issue with his phone. So it seems like it was a common problem. The hinges also had a tendency to crack.
The Motorola flare predates this but also used the full size card. My first mobile phone was purchased in 1997, a siemens c10 swing with Optus express prepaid. Cost me $200- Still have that phone number. Kinda shame that GSM is gone. I could answer the phone before or rang
wow, both videos were amazing. didn't know that hacking sim cards was a thing that dated so way back. and neither did I know that motorola used custom sim cards for unlocking functionality and to "dump" memory, just outstanding. kudos for the hackers!
Great video. I collect and restore StarTACs and other Motorola phones and I'm lucky to have the equipment to unlock them to use other networks and change the boot logo. Not many people have it. I have a StarTAC car kit and so I have an 85 with a Lexus LS430 logo. FYI that's an 85 you have, not an 80. Luckily 2G is still present here and I use a StarTAC as a secondary phone.
Really great to hear from a StarTAC fan. Thank you for letting me know the model I have. I envy that you are still able to use yours. StarTACs feel so retro-futuristic, one of the best 1990's phones.
Older is not better. I miss nothing about old phones. I lived thru it. This iPhone I’m using is WORLDS better. It’s all just for fun I guess. I wouldn’t have fun beyond a little video watching really.
It's such a coincidence that I found this video today. I was wondering what was that device specifically, I thought it was a kind of radio (the ones security guards used to have), or something. A teacher of my university have a box with a lot of different items that we have to use in order to tell a story (we're in a performing arts school). This specific device was there and called my attention.
oh my, I remember when I got the first phone in the mid/end 90s. it was kind of alien tech, and gave me goose bumbs whenever I was thinking around with it
Ah man, changing the welcome screen graphic reminds me of those pestilent Nokia 3310s everyone used to have. Every magazine you read would have pages full of ads, new screens you could receive by text message, if you spent 3 quid txting this company a special code. All sorts of really cheezy little hand-drawings and the odd dithered photo that was supposed to look like some celebrity. "I love boobs" "cars are great", all the quality stuff you could ask for. And the ringtones! Remember when that was a market that existed! Then disappeared just as quick when MP3 ringtones came in. Business must have been as good as vapes were a year or two ago, every other shop in my town sells vapes! Anyway... if it were me I'd twist those wires together on the shonky SIM adaptor, just for a modicum of strength. I might also stick the connector on the other side of the card, so you could still use it's original function if you wanted to. Giant SIMS, too! I remember those on the ubiquitous Philips Diga everyone got for xmas one time in the 1990s.
Oh my god! That's actually what I did in 1999 or 2000 when I was in university. I had all this soft and this site was dumped on CD, it had some crazy collection of hacker's and phreakers sites and utils. I did exactly the same with logo and service menu. Additionally, I've cloned my sim and managed to run a copy of it on PIC16F84 microcontroller emulator. Oh boy, what a flashback video. Wait a minute, WAS THAT YOUR SITE???
This is wonderful, my dad found 9 of his old startacs from his old work in the 90s. I've been looking into a way to make the network function work on current G cellular networks as I understand this generation of network has been shut down in all coutrys except russia.
this is simply awesome. my brother show me your channel a long ago and toldme that you have so little subs. It's great to see that you grow like foam. This video is awesome and I love old phones. keep it on!!!!
I really wish there was a way for these phones to work on more modern networks. Every iteration of mobile phone network completely breaks compatibility with the last and it is a shame
@@JanusCycle I’m curious as to what that would look like in action though. Would it mean that LTE devices could connect to newer generations of the network when LTE itself is killed off?
@@burntoutelectronics I'm not familiar enough with the details. I just remember that LTE (Long-term evolution) was meant to help with obsolescence. Things could have changed with 5G though and I could be out of date.
You could jave cut out the plastic section on the large sim card so the flexible circuit board and the cables would be "integrated" in that card. And then some tape over it to seal.
Brilliant Content as always. Criminally underrated !! I just hope when you become immensely successful (as you should be) you wont just eff off to Nebula or that curiosity pisswork and leave us loyal viewers holding our male parts
These videos will always remain free. Because I love making them and sharing them with all of you. I do need an income. But that will come from other things, hopefully I can get that side happening. Thank you for your comments and for watching!
You should do a video about Motorola Razr and QPST. Flashing 'monster' files and enabling features like Bluetooth file transfer on carrier locked phones.
I was messing around in the RF Test menus on a Note 20 Ultra and stumbled upon a menu item for "disable sub6/mmwave antenna." Curiosity got the best of me so I clicked it and now my phone has no IMEI number!
Oh. That's the way I thought they did all of the firmware stuff on every phone without a USB or other data port when I was younger. Most likely when I saw the phone provider's options for additional "programs" for phones that would appear in your menu after paying a fee and restarting the phone. Mostly weather reports, simple games and ringtone sequences.
I sold phones via Radio Shack back in this era... and into the early to mid 2000's. Regardless, here in the states, with carriers like VZW and Sprint, they used CDMA back then... and ESN's rather than SIMs... so, same phones but even smaller... as there were no provisions for any cards at all. Everything was done via keypad codes too, the hidden menus and such.
Dont understand why U'r obcessing over the sim card size its Obviously a small sim placed on the card for easy insertion. I wish that phone was still available today
The cultural phenomenon of designing the phone according to the size of the SIM card is worth noting. Also check out MKBHD recent comments on SIM card sizes, fascinating :) ua-cam.com/video/-BwUyTrU9fo/v-deo.html
I have been working to reduce hum. This one did get though, sorry about that. Hopefully my other recent videos have been better. I'm glad you are enjoying. Thank you.
In Serbia we still get the full large sim card but nobody knows it was used like that back in the day. Most people asume its juct a holder for a smaller card that you brake out of it.
And... with the right adapter, you could just have a "dual sim" card. Just take off the card, flip it 180 degrees, and insert it back... I had that in Motorola 8700 and it was something great...
@@LostieTrekieTechie Yes, I remember that in the early 2000s most of the people didn't had a mobile phone or cellular plan and relied on pay phones with cards.
@@stefangherman8408 I've seen them in Mexico as well. I was too young in the early 2000s, but when we would go on vacation in Mexico, I remember seeing payphones with a a card slot. You bought them from nearby convenience stores and put a balance on it. Once you ran out, I believe you could refill it. I thought it looked interesting as I hadn't seen that type of payphone in the US, or at least where I live. All the ones I saw just used quarter coins.
I had a StarTAC in 2014/2015, bought a prepaid SIM and used it for quite a while for fun. Did the same with a few more of my older models. Shame that 2G is gone now.
Still in use in Central Europe with the plan of shutting down no earlier than 2028. We shut down 3G networks rather than 2G in the effort of making space for 5G as there's a significant number of users with 2G phones (I assume old people) while 3G never really took off around here.
@@YS_Production Nobody cares about old people in this contest... Here (Europe, at least Italy) it's still there because of POS and things like that. Too much effort to replace millions of devices just to be compatible with newer technologies. (Yeah, Ingenico and other manufacturers for example, also in 2023, still uses GPRS).
I only started selling sell phones in the 2012s, so I know about *3001**#12345**#* and the rest of the command menus but stuff like this is neat to watch and learn from
Wow, that is quite an oversight. Though I suspect that due to SMS not being that popular at the time, most people didn't realize this. It would have just really annoyed the more tech oriented people.
Thank you for your video, it helped a lot while I was replicating this for my own Motorolas and I find your videos a joy to watch. I didn't have a vintage PC to use, but making use of a DB9 serial to USB adapter worked fine when passed through to DOSBOX on a modern system. I didn't have to patch anything and have been using the ASIM emulator clone card to unlock my phones (An MR1 and MR601 locked to Orange UK) and use them again once more. I'm from the UK, so we still have GSM900 and 1800 networks in operation and the phones remain fully functional. If anyone wants to replicate this, I'd recommend the following tips: Use a modern SIM as your base, as these cards are much thinner and flexible making it easier to slide into the phone with the added thickness of the adapter. 5k1 resistors work fine in place of the 4k7 resistors with both of my Motorola units, but your mileage may vary and oddities / damage may occur. Finally, if you get stuck where only test mode works through the ASIM emulator, it's likely you just need to load the clone card and then use the clone menu option in ASIM to initiate clone mode rather than just loading the SIM like you would with the test card.
That is awesome you were able to get this to work with DOSbox and USB to serial. I hadn't considered this possibility. Thank you for sharing your experience and tips on this. And well done on getting your phones to work again. Your comment made my day, thank you.
@@JanusCycle - Geez... the size of that full sized sim card. lol I only heard about it, in the US I've never seen one, always been using the mini size from the beginning. I still have one of those "white" test cards with IMSI 000-010xxx, great for testing purposes.
so cool!
I was The Android, back in the day i made The Asim Emulator back in 1998, is amazing than 25 years after you got it working on a old StarTac Phone. The trickiest thing was to conect to the SIM socket. Back in the day i was working on a company manufacturing SmardCard Readers and i made my own PCB of the size of a SmartCard with only the exposed pads to the ISO7816 contacts routed to the border of the PCB where i was soldering a flat cable with an IDC8pins connector on the other side.
Welcome good sir, thank you for your work. You helped many people everywhere learn about how SIM cards operate. I hope you got a kick out of seeing your software appear on UA-cam in 2023.
I would love to hear your thoughts about that time in history, or any other perspectives you wish to share.
Nice to see you around here! When I saw the contraption my first idea was also to just buy a PCB on JLC or PCBWay or something.
Maybe all those years in you could open source the emulator for everyone's benefit? :-)
@@app0the The project was open source and the code was hosted on the Janus Motorola Pages
It’s truly amazing what the UA-cam comment section has to offer sometimes!
Great to hear from the guy who wrote the software for fun and to help others out for free, I really miss those times of the internet..
Btw. Are you german @Lord Olaf?
The DOS prompt gave a German reply.
Wow legend!
I absolutely loved that you used another incorrect connector to build an adapter rather than building a whole new cable... that was a really smart solution
you are criminally undersubbed
When you put a minute of ads before having 100k plus subs that tends to happen.
@@alfredoibarra9825 UA-cam puts ads on videos. He might or might not be monetized even UA-cam will still put ads. Its not 2015 when people could chose if their videos have or don't have ads.
@@evgenidimitrov2639 Blame Google for that
Those phones were sold together with fixed car phones in a bundle. The ones in the car had a higher output, and a roof antenna so they would work in places with less coverage. The car phones used the big SIM card format, so to make it easier to transfer, they used the big cards also in the startac. (source: me, selling and servicing car phones around 2000 for PTT/KPN telecom)
I had a startac timeport when I was 16 in '99. I loved that phone. The neon green screen was awesome. Best phone at that time. My mom was so pissed, "the only people that have cell phones are doctors and drug dealers" she yelled at me. Lol. Life was so good back then.
Sounds like you had a timeport with a green OLED display, they look cool. Great story, thanks for sharing.
I remember my friend and I had phones when we were like 15 probably in 2000 and someone on the bus said "those kids must be drug dealers with those cell phones!" LMAO now every kid has a phone
This is such a fun trip down memory lane. I didn’t have a chance to mess around with the StarTac phones, but I spent a LOT of time editing memory dumps of my Motorola e815 and my Motorola KRZR back around 2005-2007. I remember being SO annoyed with Verizon here in the states and how they disabled features or (like in the case of the KRZR) how they put their own custom UI on it instead of the native Motorola UI. With the help of Internet forums and questionable software, I was able to enable hidden features, turn on disabled features, and load up different firmwares from Canadian carriers to get my Moto UI back like I wanted it. There was nothing quite like the rush of editing memory dumps bit by bit then holding your breath as you hit the write button hoping that it booted and didn’t break the device (while hoping the feature you wanted was enabled!) I recently got into playing with SDRs and getting a couple of AMPS phones back up and running on my own mini network, but I may have to add a couple of these StarTac handhelds to my 2G test networks! Thanks for the video - this was a cool find!
I didn't know about modding Motorola KRZR phones, thanks.
3:03: I love how, in the documentation, it refers to data transfer as "personality transfer".
lol, also hi skcro.!
Absolutely loving the jankiness of the point-to-point soldered male to female serial adapter you made after you realized you used the wrong connector. amazing!
Thank you :)
I have been glued to your channel for the last few hours, every video is just nostalgic. Thanks for bringing back the memories of how i and my friend were used to tweaking these phones back then.
I'm pleased you are enjoying :)
Your videos are amazing! Too bad vintage phones are forgotten, but those were definitely made when technology was fun. Good ol' times of the Nokia DCT-3 and the Siemens S3x and S4x :D
I was genuinely on the edge of my seat when you popped that adapter in and it started working. Cheers!
The Star-Tac was my absolute favorite of all time. Small, clean audio, reliable, and crazy battery life. I've never owned a phone that I liked better.
The Star-Tac was a beast, it was the most durable phone for its size and yes the battery could go for days without a recharge.
Great video, makes you wonder how much mischief could have been had with this knowledge when the network's were running.
2G is still in use in Central Europe with the plan of shutting down no earlier than 2028. We shut down 3G networks rather than 2G in the effort of making space for 5G as there's a significant number of users with 2G phones (I assume old people) while 3G never really took off around here.
In the days a little before, phones used analogue transmission with digital codes for cell routing etc. Some shitty newspaper had a radio scanner and caught Prince Charles exchanging naughty words with Camilla. All completely unencrypted. The other thing was, people would set up premium-rate phone lines. Then they'd go out and wander through town with a receiver picking up, I think, ESN and MIN codes ("pairs"). They were transmitted by phones as part of the protocol, unencrypted, and the network trusted you were who you said you were.
So they'd hack phones and put in these pairs, cloning the phones whose signals they received earlier. A cloned phone is on somebody else's phone bill. I saw a TV report, a wall with dozens of phones mounted to it, all on chargers, and all cloned. Ringing up the premium rate number in another county. Racking up a fortune in bills. But because it was a foreign country, the home nation (Britain) couldn't do anything to force a refund. The foreign telco and the pirate split the profits. A lovely little earner, and all you had to do was hang round a metropolitan train station for a bit while your gadget filled up with pairs. When it was full, you go home with your haul. They made a ton.
Of course this was when only rich wankers owned mobile phones, back in dinosaur times, so little sympathy. Usually their carrier refunded them and copped the bill themselves. International phone agreements mean bills must be paid!
Takes me back, had one in 1998. Loved the little pull out antenna. I remember looking at the little battery pack and thinking I wonder if in the future they can integrate a pager that can hook on the back of your phone thinking “wouldn’t that be a great idea”, so I wouldn’t have to carry my separate pager! Lol
They did make backpacks for the startac
I laughed when he pulled out the sim card, i was not expecting a whole ass debit card
The back case of the phone was so flexible that it would twist the SIM causing disconnection from the SIM contacts. Crazy design.
Releasing 2 videos simultaneously is a bit of a bold move (I've heard that multiple releases within a day can affect whether subs see the video). But considering you've got call to actions in both it makes sense.
UA-cam says they optimize what you see to give the viewer the best experience. That's a good sentiment if true. So if both videos are worth watching, then that's the most important thing to me.
@@JanusCycle can you create some type of device that can output a 1x,2g, or 3G signal but connects to 4G or 5G? It would be cool to make a call on a retro phone
@@Vap3king it's essentially a translator like a radio or TV station translator station
Just adding that I really liked the editing of the outro.
I miss that phone, made me feel badass when I used it. I can't tell how many times I would just pretend to use it for a call to show off, pulling up that antenna just gave u a feeling of coolness
I love that this is relatable to modern day phones. Samsung also just removed some hidden menus like the band selector from their phones requiring a shell exploit to access now.
There's a program called SamTool that enables RF Test mode (*#73#) on Samsung phones via AT commands over the "diag" usb mux. It's an enormously usefull dialer code once enabled. The system uid shell exploit is awesome too because it gives read access to all the phone's battery stats listed under /sys/class/power_supply/battery like # of cycles and even # of times the usb-c plug has been used lol
@@snowdaysrule couldn't get it to work on my note 20 Ultra
@@snowdaysrule tried that and nothing happened on my M23
@coreybabcock2023 Give it another shot! I just used it on a sm-n9860 and a sm-s901u1 and it really does enable *#73# | The program was apparently given an update because both phones were able to enable RF Test pretty much instantly the process works the first attempt now.
You are such a PHREAK! Great job! :)
I had a play with these Motorola SIM card emulators a few years ago and changed the graphic on a M3788 and enabled the Engineering menu on a V3688. It was quite fun wandering around with it looking at the figures. I didn't bother making a fancy "SIM Card" like you did, I just used crocodile clips to clip onto the sim socket. Your solution looks a bit more elegant.
That is cool, clipping directly onto the sim pins and getting the job done. The V3688 is so light and small, I have one as well.
@@JanusCycle The V3688 is a cool device. The sounds quality is good and the holographic reflector they used in the screen is really neat. Unfortunately its all plastic clipped together construction makes it a bit flimsy - a bit reminiscent of today's smartphones! These old GSM Motorolas would be quite usable today if it weren't for issues with their SMS support. They only seem to support the 7 bit GSM character set and some people will send messages with non-GSM characters, in which case the phone will refuse to display the whole message, whereas Nokias and Erricsons will just ignore the dodgy characters. I've no idea what characters people sent me in order to cause this; probably just those pesky smileys :).
When I was little, I had one of these, at the time my brother's girlfriend worked in a telecommunications conglomerate, as a telemarketing attendant. She had access and enabled a line for this phone for a few years, but my version did not come with this SIM port, it was already integrated into the device. Nice video =)
I love how the test cards have the mini-sim design with little perforations around it to support the giant SIM.
I had this phone back in the days. I wish someone could make a Bluetooth version that could connect to my iPhone just for calls and texts. That would be amazing! 🤔
I think it might be possible by hooking the SIM emulator to something like Raspberry Pi Zero W and running ASIM on DOSBox. The real challenge though is to write a program that handles Bluetooth connections and translates them for ASIM.
i find it equally cool, and nuts, that anyone does this kind of stuff with ancient tech
what is interesting is that over here (in germany) when you order a sim card or get sent one, it comes in that full size form factor w/ the breakout tabs
so technically, if it wasnt for the shutdown of the network, you could use a startak to this day using a modern simcard
it's GMS, SMS, full phone, the sim card doing a lot on the heavy lifting, thing SIM card on the phone like phone book telephone number, and all SMS (email) massaging was all handled by the sim card, just taking your sim card of of your phone, them placing it different phone moved your phone book, and all your massages too, to that phone not just your phone number, the sim card is a little computer (CPU,MEMORY,STORAGE,PROGRAMS all the bit that make computer) in it own right it not just simple memory card, the phone is of not (sort of terminal, and power supply, and radio transmitter/receiver ), to access the real phone that is really the sim card?
It was the same here in Australia until the networks were shutdown in 2019 (At least for telstra). Afterwards, they immediately shrunk the size of the plastic knock-out as no phones which utilize full size sims would still have a network available to them
@@dh2032 SIM card is just a storage + crypto processor to auth into the network and decrypt stored data.
Not really, operating voltage is different, it would either simply not work or fry the modern card.
You could still use a StarTAK in Germany as GSM (2G) has not been shutdown here yet
What a thoroughly interesting watch. Regarding your issues with the timing of ASIM, I was interested to see how it was solved. I had a similar issue with erroneous operation of Motorola software used to program Syntrx radios. My solution was to run the software on a 486DX, that I had stashed away. Seemed to work nicely.
My grandmother had a startac from 96 until 2013 when she passed away. That sucker was rock solid.
Man I remember my first phone that had one of those credit-card sized sims, wild to see that it's the same size in this phone
One of the greatest videos on youtube. Really appreciate the time and effort you spend making these videos. Totally recommending your channel on people around me. Please keep uploading such great content!
Thank you for your support. In return I’ll keep making the best videos I can make.
@@JanusCycle I have a siemens cell phone from this same year and it has a bigger card then this to. It has omni point as the provider. The sim card goes on the back. .
This brings back so much memory.. I used to own the StarTAC 70/80/90 and StarTAC X phones back in the day.. the latter which uses a smaller sized SIM instead.. and also a few variants of the MicroTAC models. Love them.. big bricks 😅
The StarTAC X looks even better than this model. I would love to try one out one day.
I had a couple of StatTAC's but here in the U.S. in those days, no SIM cards. Great phone for the era, small, light, handy.
i like seeing old technology of course and learning about it
Glad the algorithm brought me here. I remember doing something similar to my 5110 back in the day. Also reminded me of unlocking the first iphone with some physical SIM addons. Dont remember how they were called even.
I enjoy watching every video of yours, whether it's a movie or a documentary. You are great.
Thank you, I'm pleased you are enjoying so many of my videos.
Until today I did not know that Sim card emulators existed, thankyou for this
Uploading a modified bootup logo onto the LCD display of my 2G phone that I had sourced from suspect websites used to be great fun back in the day.
Thanks so much for sharing. 😉👌🏻
Simpler times but still much fun, thanks for your comment.
That was my first thought...that is impressive they worked all that small tech around that huge card.
I don't know how I found your channel but so glad I did.
Glad you are enjoying the videos, thanks for watching!
The combination of "The Android" and "Turbo Pascal" gives me an eerie feeling that I might actually know the person in charge for that nice emulator tool, even though we met in a completely different industry of things :P
Yes it's me, hehe. But as you know now i'm more focussed on Sega Arcade Cabinets and Pinballs.
lovely avatar
I had that phone way back then... but I did not know about the big sim card
Thanks for the video
The analog ones didn't have the sim card
bloody impressive mate. love the channel
cool, thank you.
I still have my StarTac. My first cellphone.
No idea why this appeared in my feed, glad it did though! Subbed
Awesome :)
I wish I could explore all those devices!! Thanks man..
StarTAC geeze i miss those, they were awesome!
Love the old laptop to, i still have a few 486 and pent 1 laptops to program my old motorola twoway radio stuff :)
Nice, vintage laptops are great for this kind of thing.
@@JanusCycle definitely agree
This was my very first phone. Amazing
My Dad loved his Startac phones. When he'd get a new one, it was my job to manually input contact details from one to the other, in the car, getting motion sickness. Bloody Narc. Anyhow, this ability to clone from phone to phone would have been really useful.
This channel is strangely interesting, and i like it.
Awesome, I like hearing that :)
An idea: you might be able to cut between the contacts and/or microwave a full sized card for a few seconds (to fry the intenals), check with a continuity meter that tnere is no continuity between pads a d simply solder directly to the pads on the dummy card. Also you might use a loyalty/gift card from a shop.
Mate and I both had one of these back in the day. Both at some stage started to have issues recognising the sim card. And my mates friend also had the issue with his phone. So it seems like it was a common problem. The hinges also had a tendency to crack.
I may not be that old, but I remember this issue and my dads solution, a bandaid under the chip.
This was one of my first phones as a teen in 1999. Managed to get sms to email working and felt like I was mastering the matrix
Awesome phone to have as one of your first!
The Motorola flare predates this but also used the full size card.
My first mobile phone was purchased in 1997, a siemens c10 swing with Optus express prepaid. Cost me $200- Still have that phone number.
Kinda shame that GSM is gone. I could answer the phone before or rang
Reminds me of the iPhone field test mode. Neat stuff.
wow, both videos were amazing. didn't know that hacking sim cards was a thing that dated so way back. and neither did I know that motorola used custom sim cards for unlocking functionality and to "dump" memory, just outstanding. kudos for the hackers!
Some great hacks of the 1990s are starting to become forgotten. I’m putting a stop to that :)
Great video. I collect and restore StarTACs and other Motorola phones and I'm lucky to have the equipment to unlock them to use other networks and change the boot logo. Not many people have it. I have a StarTAC car kit and so I have an 85 with a Lexus LS430 logo. FYI that's an 85 you have, not an 80. Luckily 2G is still present here and I use a StarTAC as a secondary phone.
Really great to hear from a StarTAC fan. Thank you for letting me know the model I have. I envy that you are still able to use yours. StarTACs feel so retro-futuristic, one of the best 1990's phones.
@@JanusCycle Take your StarTAC on your travels. Many counties still have 2G. I’ve used mine all over Europe.
I wish I could use older phones here, but everyone's pushed into 5G. :(
Older is not better. I miss nothing about old phones. I lived thru it. This iPhone I’m using is WORLDS better. It’s all just for fun I guess. I wouldn’t have fun beyond a little video watching really.
My first phone. It's most impressive feature was the
dot matrix screen that allowed for scrollable text.
Flashing phones for resale from the grey market be like
It's such a coincidence that I found this video today. I was wondering what was that device specifically, I thought it was a kind of radio (the ones security guards used to have), or something.
A teacher of my university have a box with a lot of different items that we have to use in order to tell a story (we're in a performing arts school). This specific device was there and called my attention.
Nice, I like a good coincidence like that. I hope you are enjoying learning the performing arts :)
oh my, I remember when I got the first phone in the mid/end 90s. it was kind of alien tech, and gave me goose bumbs whenever I was thinking around with it
Ah man, changing the welcome screen graphic reminds me of those pestilent Nokia 3310s everyone used to have. Every magazine you read would have pages full of ads, new screens you could receive by text message, if you spent 3 quid txting this company a special code. All sorts of really cheezy little hand-drawings and the odd dithered photo that was supposed to look like some celebrity. "I love boobs" "cars are great", all the quality stuff you could ask for. And the ringtones! Remember when that was a market that existed! Then disappeared just as quick when MP3 ringtones came in. Business must have been as good as vapes were a year or two ago, every other shop in my town sells vapes!
Anyway... if it were me I'd twist those wires together on the shonky SIM adaptor, just for a modicum of strength. I might also stick the connector on the other side of the card, so you could still use it's original function if you wanted to.
Giant SIMS, too! I remember those on the ubiquitous Philips Diga everyone got for xmas one time in the 1990s.
Oh my god! That's actually what I did in 1999 or 2000 when I was in university. I had all this soft and this site was dumped on CD, it had some crazy collection of hacker's and phreakers sites and utils. I did exactly the same with logo and service menu. Additionally, I've cloned my sim and managed to run a copy of it on PIC16F84 microcontroller emulator. Oh boy, what a flashback video. Wait a minute, WAS THAT YOUR SITE???
That site wasn't me. Just the same first name. Great to hear from someone who did this back in the day.
@@JanusCycle Awesome video anyway, keep it up. Thanks for bringing it all back.
The information ist 26 years to late for me but it's nice to know what was possible...
So im not familiar with these phones: at 0:26 it mentions PCMCIA in the catalog that i cant read. What did these phones use PCMCIA for?
These phones could be used as wireless modems in the 90s. A PCMCIA card was often needed to make this work.
I had that phone. At the time I thought it was great. Rest in peace StarTac..
This is wonderful, my dad found 9 of his old startacs from his old work in the 90s. I've been looking into a way to make the network function work on current G cellular networks as I understand this generation of network has been shut down in all coutrys except russia.
You meant NMT or 2G
2G is still uvailable (we in Slovenia have it as well as Croatia, Italy, Austria, etc)
this is simply awesome. my brother show me your channel a long ago and toldme that you have so little subs. It's great to see that you grow like foam. This video is awesome and I love old phones. keep it on!!!!
I'm really glad you are enjoying these videos. I am working on some new ones at the moment. New one coming soon.
The 9-pin connector is named DE9, not DB9 :)
That startac was one of my second cell phone. I always thought it's giant sim card was really wierd.
The StarTac brings back some memories
I love this kind of video showing hidden features of special phones,the startac is absolutely a great phone.
Got a new sub,your content is amazing!
I really wish there was a way for these phones to work on more modern networks. Every iteration of mobile phone network completely breaks compatibility with the last and it is a shame
LTE is designed for long term compatability. That doesn't help legacy products though.
@@JanusCycle I’m curious as to what that would look like in action though. Would it mean that LTE devices could connect to newer generations of the network when LTE itself is killed off?
@@burntoutelectronics I'm not familiar enough with the details. I just remember that LTE (Long-term evolution) was meant to help with obsolescence. Things could have changed with 5G though and I could be out of date.
You could jave cut out the plastic section on the large sim card so the flexible circuit board and the cables would be "integrated" in that card. And then some tape over it to seal.
Brilliant Content as always. Criminally underrated !! I just hope when you become immensely successful (as you should be) you wont just eff off to Nebula or that curiosity pisswork and leave us loyal viewers holding our male parts
These videos will always remain free. Because I love making them and sharing them with all of you. I do need an income. But that will come from other things, hopefully I can get that side happening. Thank you for your comments and for watching!
You should do a video about Motorola Razr and QPST. Flashing 'monster' files and enabling features like Bluetooth file transfer on carrier locked phones.
I used to do that back in the mid 2000s bricked a few v3m,s
I just knew there was a Portege coming when I saw that docking module!
I can’t tell you how cool this is. Nor do I need to.
Cool you can do a spy show
Very, very cool. I love your videos
I'm pleased to hear that :)
I was messing around in the RF Test menus on a Note 20 Ultra and stumbled upon a menu item for "disable sub6/mmwave antenna." Curiosity got the best of me so I clicked it and now my phone has no IMEI number!
What code did you use to get to that point
Oh, memories ... still have same stuff still in boxes on attic, including some Motorola d160's with easily accessible BDM interface connector.
I didn't know that the SIM card slot could be used to modify a Motorola StarTAC.
Oh. That's the way I thought they did all of the firmware stuff on every phone without a USB or other data port when I was younger. Most likely when I saw the phone provider's options for additional "programs" for phones that would appear in your menu after paying a fee and restarting the phone. Mostly weather reports, simple games and ringtone sequences.
After taking some phones apart, I also noticed uncovered golden data communication pads on the PCBs.
I still have my Motorola 7760 startac phone. Cool little phone back in the early 2000s.
I sold phones via Radio Shack back in this era... and into the early to mid 2000's. Regardless, here in the states, with carriers like VZW and Sprint, they used CDMA back then... and ESN's rather than SIMs... so, same phones but even smaller... as there were no provisions for any cards at all. Everything was done via keypad codes too, the hidden menus and such.
AT&T and TMobile where the only GSM networks in the US at that time
I really liked this video, thanks for sharing 😎👍.
Awesome, I'm glad you enjoyed this. I had a really good time making this video.
Does test cards works on newer phones?
Dont understand why U'r obcessing over the sim card size its Obviously a small sim placed on the card for easy insertion. I wish that phone was still available today
The cultural phenomenon of designing the phone according to the size of the SIM card is worth noting. Also check out MKBHD recent comments on SIM card sizes, fascinating :)
ua-cam.com/video/-BwUyTrU9fo/v-deo.html
Amazing video! Good job! Did you know there's a weird hum on your audio? Slightly irritating whilst listening via headphones.
I have been working to reduce hum. This one did get though, sorry about that. Hopefully my other recent videos have been better. I'm glad you are enjoying. Thank you.
In Serbia we still get the full large sim card but nobody knows it was used like that back in the day. Most people asume its juct a holder for a smaller card that you brake out of it.
And... with the right adapter, you could just have a "dual sim" card. Just take off the card, flip it 180 degrees, and insert it back... I had that in Motorola 8700 and it was something great...
I would 3D print a sim card to accommodate the wires 😉
this was my first phone. then came nokia 3310 and i sold it for about 2 dollars cuz the battery was wasted. it brings back memories
Who does this? , I love this channel
That kind of full size sim card was used were used in public telephones in Europe.
I remember using a payphone with these cards, up in a Romanian mountain village that at the time did not have cellular coverage
@@LostieTrekieTechie Yes, I remember that in the early 2000s most of the people didn't had a mobile phone or cellular plan and relied on pay phones with cards.
@@stefangherman8408 I've seen them in Mexico as well. I was too young in the early 2000s, but when we would go on vacation in Mexico, I remember seeing payphones with a a card slot. You bought them from nearby convenience stores and put a balance on it. Once you ran out, I believe you could refill it. I thought it looked interesting as I hadn't seen that type of payphone in the US, or at least where I live. All the ones I saw just used quarter coins.
I had a StarTAC in 2014/2015, bought a prepaid SIM and used it for quite a while for fun. Did the same with a few more of my older models. Shame that 2G is gone now.
Still in use in Central Europe with the plan of shutting down no earlier than 2028. We shut down 3G networks rather than 2G in the effort of making space for 5G as there's a significant number of users with 2G phones (I assume old people) while 3G never really took off around here.
@@YS_Production Nobody cares about old people in this contest... Here (Europe, at least Italy) it's still there because of POS and things like that. Too much effort to replace millions of devices just to be compatible with newer technologies. (Yeah, Ingenico and other manufacturers for example, also in 2023, still uses GPRS).
@@DetectiveOnanand power meters of Enel, the electric company.
@@mm-es6yq Right. Even some "newer" gas ones. But at least my gas meter, under TIM network, it's on 3G if I recall correctly.
I only started selling sell phones in the 2012s, so I know about *3001**#12345**#* and the rest of the command menus but stuff like this is neat to watch and learn from
I knew about this stuff since I was 19 I'm now 39
A classic, popular phone!
The problem with the early version of Startac was the SMS didn't display sender's Contact name, instead only displaying the phone number.
Wow, that is quite an oversight. Though I suspect that due to SMS not being that popular at the time, most people didn't realize this. It would have just really annoyed the more tech oriented people.