jchin@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca (Joseph Chin) (01/27/91)
This is probably not the right news group to post this ... but here it goes: I am looking for a GOOD fax/telephone switch. My primitive unit requires that someone or an answering machine picks up the call before it can detect the special tone emitted by automatic incoming fax calls, and then route the call to the fax machine/modem. I know of intelligient built-in fax/phone switch that is actually intelligent enough to answer the call one first ring to determine whether it is a fax call (again, but using the special tone) and if it is not a fax call, the switch will ring the call through to an extension phone/answering machine. But the unit described in the previous sentence is NOT built into the fax modem I have. Does anyone know or can recommend an AFFORDABLE external switching unit that does the same thing? I am sure this will be of interest to NeXT owners who wish to attach fax modems to their systems, but do not wish to incur the extra cost of a dedicated fax line. I will follow up any suggestions and post a summary (if there is one). :-) Joe jchin@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca -- ************************************************************** * "Kill the body and the head will die" (Hunter S. Thompson) * * NeXT --> The ultimate electronic publishing platform! * ********** Joseph Chin --> jchin@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca *********
rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) (01/28/91)
In article <1627@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca> jchin@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca (Joseph Chin) writes: >I am looking for a GOOD fax/telephone switch. My primitive unit requires >that someone or an answering machine picks up the call before it can >detect the special tone emitted by automatic incoming fax calls, and >[...] I use at the moment a thing called ASAP TF-555. This thing picks up at the first ring, waits for a fax tone or a reverse modem tone. If any of these are present it directs the call to the fax or modem (depends on the tone of course). If none of these are present, the call goes to the phone. If after a while you do not pick up the phone, the call goes to the answering machine. (I don't use this last feature, since my phone already has an answering machine built in.) You can get this stuff at 47th street photo. However I would not call it affordable. Considering the few components involved, I think it is quite expensive. Someone with a little bit of hardware background could easily let the NeXT itself do this work. Anyone up to doing this? Ronald ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." G.B. Shaw | rca@cs.brown.edu or antony@browncog.bitnet
fjs@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Fernando J. Selman) (01/28/91)
I believe a good option is to get a second number to the same phone line (approx $8 a month) and then to use a ring pattern discriminator to route the call to the appropiate device. - Fernando
cfw@aplpy.jhuapl.edu (Chuck Waltrip) (01/30/91)
In article <1627@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca> jchin@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca (Joseph Chin) writes: >This is probably not the right news group to post this ... but here it >goes: > >I am looking for a GOOD fax/telephone switch. My primitive unit requires >that someone or an answering machine picks up the call before it can >detect the special tone emitted by automatic incoming fax calls, and >then route the call to the fax machine/modem. I know of intelligient >built-in fax/phone switch that is actually intelligent enough to answer >the call one first ring to determine whether it is a fax call (again, >but using the special tone) and if it is not a fax call, the switch will >ring the call through to an extension phone/answering machine. But the >unit described in the previous sentence is NOT built into the fax modem >I have. Does anyone know or can recommend an AFFORDABLE external >switching unit that does the same thing? > >I am sure this will be of interest to NeXT owners who wish to attach >fax modems to their systems, but do not wish to incur the extra cost >of a dedicated fax line. > >I will follow up any suggestions and post a summary (if there is one). > >:-) Joe >jchin@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca > >-- > ************************************************************** > * "Kill the body and the head will die" (Hunter S. Thompson) * > * NeXT --> The ultimate electronic publishing platform! * > ********** Joseph Chin --> jchin@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca *********
waltrip@capd.jhuapl.edu (01/31/91)
I tried to followup to this using an unfamiliar newsreader and screwed it up. Sorry. Here's another try. > In article <1627@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca> jchin@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca (Joseph Chin) > writes [...material deleted...] >I am looking for a GOOD fax/telephone switch. [...more material deleted...] I believe I saw somewhere that someone (believe it was NeXTcessories) had proposed a fax/data modem/telephone switch that would, I believe, come with NeXT software that would permit the NeXT to work as a phone answering machine. Neat idea but I've heard nothing more (and I think this was about a year ago). Anyone else see this or hear anything more about it? c.f.waltrip Internet: <waltrip@capsrv.jhuapl.edu> Opinions expressed are my own.