jxf@phobos.cis.ksu.edu (Jerry Frain) (02/08/90)
Ya know, I was thinking the other day, wouldn't it be neato if you
could set your Mac up to be a telephone answering machine?
Doesn't appear to be too difficult. Run a program that sets the modem
up for auto-answer. When the phone rings, the computer answers and
plays a recording stored in a disk file.
The hard part, of course, would be recording the message from the
caller. I guess for that you'd need some extra hardware and
software, like Farallon's MacRecorder maybe?
It seems to me that I have read about a card that can be put into
a PC that does this sort of thing, I don't recall ever hearing about
any products that do this for the Mac.
I am sure others (besides me) have considered this possibility.
So how about it? Anyone out there have some info about this?
Thanks in advance,
--Jerry
--
Jerry Frain -- Professional Student Kansas State University
Internet: jxf@phobos.cis.ksu.edu Dept of Computing & Information Sciences
BITNET: MUSTANG@KSUVM Manhattan, Kansas
UUCP: ...!{rutgers|textbell}!ksuvax1!phobos.cis.ksu.edu!jxfcramer@athens.tmc.edu (Bill Cramer) (02/09/90)
In article <1990Feb8.072021.17778@deimos.cis.ksu.edu> jxf@phobos.cis.ksu.edu (Jerry Frain) writes: >Ya know, I was thinking the other day, wouldn't it be neato if you >could set your Mac up to be a telephone answering machine? > >Doesn't appear to be too difficult. Run a program that sets the modem >up for auto-answer. When the phone rings, the computer answers and >plays a recording stored in a disk file. > Well, yes, such a beast is possible, and maybe even available for the Mac. Said cards are avialable for the IBM-PC market -- the one that I'm vaguely familiar with has four lines, can play messages, can record messages, and can understand DTMF ("Press 6 to hear Brother Larry's advice on sin ..." :-). In the commercial market, this makes sense -- the computer is on all of the time, record and playback facilities are a whole lot more versatile than on your average PhoneMate, computer cost can be justified by the savings realized from not using humans to answer the phone, etc. The software required to set up the recording parameters doesn't really require a whizbang user interface since humans seldom use it except to playback messages -- a low-res character-based PC interface is sufficient, hence putting it on a Mac would jack up the price without adding much additional value. I don't really see much of a market for home use of a computer-based answering machine. I sure don't want to leave my $$$ computer (mac or otherwise) up all day and night waiting to record phone calls from aluminum siding salecritters :-) Anyways, that's my opinion -- possible, but don't expect to see it soon (now that I've said that, sure as heck someone will build it and make serious $$$ at it!) Bill Cramer | (214)612-2600 IEX Corporation | {uunet,convex,attctc}!iex!cramer 1400 Preston Road, Suite 350 | Plano, Texas 75093 |
dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) (02/13/90)
In article <1990Feb9.145320.28022@iex.uucp> cramer@athens.tmc.edu (Bill Cramer) writes: >I sure don't want to leave my $$$ computer (mac or >otherwise) up all day and night waiting to record phone calls from >aluminum siding salecritters :-) Except during a thunderstorm, leaving your $$$ computer on all the time is better for it than power-cycling it frequently. If you use your computer more than once a week, you're probably better off leaving it on. What would make a really great product would be one that could recognize the voices of salespeople, and emit high-volume noise into their ears :-). -- Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office Internet: s-dorner@uiuc.edu UUCP: {convex,uunet}!uiucuxc!dorner
clarson@ux.acs.umn.edu (Chaz Larson) (02/13/90)
In article <1990Feb12.171702.17091@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) writes: > >What would make a really great product would be one that could recognize >the voices of salespeople, and emit high-volume noise into their ears :-). > I am considering putting in a second phone line for use with my modem, so I can feel free to stay online BBS'ing as long as I wish without missing incoming calls, as well as being able to call my home machine when I'm at work and someone asks for that new cdev I tell them about but didn't bring in... Of course, this will also provide a convenient phone number to give to those firms that refuse to send sales literature without recieving my phone number. 8) Methinks some carrier tone will discourage all but the most persistent salesguy. <chaz> -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chaz Larson - clarson@ux.acs.umn.edu "Hey, I'm no Jack Kennedy..." - Flaming Carrot ----------------------------------------------------------------------
alexis@panix.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) (02/14/90)
(No, I'm not going to quote the message, or the incredibly lengthy response...) Yes, there is such a program. It's called TFLX, and it's advertised every week in the back of MacWeek. I've spoken to one user and he claimed it could do everything he could think of. He loved it, but I don't know if he has any bias one way or the other. I don't think that TFLX can deal with multiple lines, the way REPARTEE can on a PC, for example. However, I might be wrong about that. Alexis Rosen Sysadmin, Panix