Questions for the hardware hackers

[Thad P Floryan]

jeffrey at sci.ccny.cuny.edu (Jeffrey L Bromberger)
in <1990Dec28.195237.2760 at sci.ccny.cuny.edu> writes:

	Now that Thad is (was?) going to try putting an IBM'ish monitor on the
	machine, ...

I almost did this today (Friday).  Went over and checked out the monitors, and
found a 14" BTC monitor with tilt-'n-swivel base in either amber or
paper-white.  All 3 stores were out of the paper-white one, so I'll try again
next week.  But it looks like it should work just fine.  And the
tilt-'n-swivel base appears like it may just drop-in on the UNIXPC.  And the
screen on that BTC also looks almost flat.  To say the least, I'm excited
about this and will report back as soon as possible.

	I was wondering about changing the mouse.  Maybe our machines
	can't be as nice as a Sun, but I'd like to try putting on an optical
	mouse.  But, to my dismay, there's no pinout in the Hardware Manual
	for the mouse *or* keyboard.  So, has anyone else dreamed of this and
	seriously looked into it?

I've been looking into this also.  It looks like the manufacturer of the
UNIXPC mouse "may" be the same one that makes the Sun optical mouse.  I have
a Sun 3-button optical mouse on one of my Amigas so I may just try it.  I've
just today located a source of the optical mouse pads, so ....   stay tuned!
The circuitry doesn't look too complex so it should be straightforward to
ascertain the pinouts.

	Next, I got one of those annoying computer calls last night.  You all
	know the type, where the computer spits out this huge message to get
	you to buy something.  Can I make my voice power card dial out and
	make these annoying calls? :-)  Would I have to use the 3B1's builtin
	dialler and put the line through the VP card?

Heh heh!  I've already beat you to the punch.  The VoicePower CAN make those
calls automatically.  The RJ11 (nee RJ45) jack on the VoicePower connects
directly to the phone line and does its own dialing (besides also answering a
call and allowing menu selections).  For example, to call a number and play
your message after the line is answered requires only:

	$ vplay -l 2 -r n -d number voice_file

My favorite is to call "someone" with my already-recorded "beep BOOP beep We're
sorry, all circuits are busy,  please try your call again later" then cut in
with the handset to actually speak to the person!  :-)

To say the least, the VoicePower is one incredible accessory.  By itself it's
reason to own a UNIXPC.

Thad Floryan [ thad at cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]