hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) (10/10/85)
<>I had an opportunity to see a demo of the Northern Telecom Meridian DV-1. This is a combination of a PBX and CPU for up to about 100 lines. It can handle ordinary telephones, but the show-off voice/data terminal was their M4020. This has a screen & keyboard, and a telephone handset & speaker- phone. The DV-1 has a built-in cpu (68010) running DVIX (Unix V) with a hard disk, and can have additional cpu models added. These can have different processors, such as an 80286. From the terminal you can consult a telephone directory, autodial out, do all sort of nice ring-back, camp-on, conference, etc. sorts of things, but you can also edit data files, do spreadsheets, wp, etc., and then call up a colleague and share the session on both of your screens while you discuss over the speaker-phone and change the data, etc. You can get a board for an IBM PC/compatible to work with the system (but, of course, it won't have the phone built in.) The whole setup works smoothly and appears well thought out. Anyone interested in data/voice/office-automation should take a look. --henry schaffer