> I *did* have tip working just fine, so I know that my /etc/remote setup is
> okay.  Same goes for the ppp stuff -- it was working and all of a sudden
> it wasn't anymore.
> 
> > Off the top of my head, boot single user and fsck everything. I had
> > pppd start acting weird, and it was obscure file system damage. Oh,
> > use the -f flag for fsck to force it to check; the fs's were marked
> > clean, but weren't. :-(
> 
> I gave this a try, but fsck didn't report any problems and nothing's
> different.

Did you check things close? It's not the first thing I'd check, but
something weird is going on, so start checking minutia.

> Another tidbit of info: I have SD and RD lights on my modem... when I use
> a terminal program on the mac and type in "AT", both lights flash
> simultaneously for each character I press.  On the Unix side, the modem
> shows no activity at all. 

That's bad. The next things I can think of are:

Make sure tty00 and tty01 are still correct devices. (c 12,0 and c 12,1 IIRC)

Check permissions (though you'd get an error for that!).

Check the config files are correct. Word for word.

Check the file size and some sort of checksum (or re-install) the affected
binaries.

Is anything else wrong? Did something else die, and this is the only part
you've noticed?

Do the zstty boot messages look ok?

Try turning on debugging in ppp and in chat.

Did you change kernels?

Good luck!

Bill