voice mail for 386ix

[John G. De Armond]

In article <4525 at gaboon.UUCP> asv at gaboon.UUCP (Stan Voket) writes:
>
>
>I've been toying with the idea of putting a voice mail board in my 
>386.  The Dialogic I saw at Unix Expo has 386ix drivers but is an OEM 
>product for developers.  Specialized and expensive for my purposes.  A 
>board that has been available for quite some time and is reasonably 
>priced is Watson.  It is DOS only.  I know it would be a cpu hog but I 
>wouldn't be at the machine if I had it enabled.  
>
>Has anyone run this or other voice boards under vpix?  
>
>If someone has some insight into this sort of application, please 
>e-mail and I'll summerize for the net.  

Stan,

I'm not sure that the less intelligent voice cards such as the Bigmouth
will be very satisfactory under unix.  They depend on the main CPU having
essentially real time response and almost dedicated disk I/O.  I'd 
suggest you take another look at the Dialogic card.  I've done a large
project around this card.  It is a dream to work with.  The board has
its own multitasking executive that handles the board functions.  The
host machine communicates through a series of queues, implemented as
shared memory, and interrupts.  It will fit very well into the Unix way
of doing things.  I know that Dialogic has a driver for Unix available
for the board.

They have a 2 port board that is less expensive than the 4 port unit
they typically display and advertise.  Same board but with fewer ports.
They also have one with reduced functionality.  I really don't know
much about that model.

About the only negative aspect, aside from the cost, is that they
(the company) are somewhat difficult to deal with.  It took me quite
some time before I could get anybody to open up and discuss any (of the
many) undocumented features.  After establishing a relationship, however,
they did provide good support.  To their credit, almost anything you might
ever think of to do with a phone line is already implemented if not
documented.  

If you are really serious about working with one, I can dig mine out and
see how it works under Unix and VP/IX.  

73 john
.


-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC                     | Manual? ... What manual ?!? 
Radiation Systems, Inc.     Atlanta, GA    | This is Unix, My son, You 
emory!rsiatl!jgd          **I am the NRA** | just GOTTA Know!!!