asv@gaboon.UUCP (Stan Voket) (11/20/89)
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. Thanks- :-) -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | - Stan Voket, asv@gaboon - OR - ...uunet!hsi!stpstn!gaboon!asv | | Land Line: (203) 746-4489 TELEX 4996516 - | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
jgd@rsiatl.UUCP (John G. De Armond) (11/21/89)
In article <4525@gaboon.UUCP> asv@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!!!
root@nebulus (Dennis S. Breckenridge) (11/21/89)
asv@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 >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. DOS only means serious limitations for vpix. The board probably is interrupt driven and requires a device driver (config.sys). Vpix will not work very well in this environment! VPIX is a user process to unix. That is, it can be preempted by another process and if it becomes a CPU hog the Unix scheduler does not give it an entire tick of runtime. What this means to a DOS program is that the interupt your voice board needs to be serviced now may or may not get serviced now. This usually croaks the application. DO NOT RUN ANY HIGH INTERUPT DRIVEN hardware under VPIX and expect it to work Hell I even tried the joystick under vpix and found it too unreliable and it's just a polled bitwise port. >Has anyone run this or other voice boards under vpix? Nope but I have run AT&T Voicepower Under UNIX/386. They provide some pretty cool software for handling and creating message files. One a file has been created you can UUCP it to another site and play it back. I hear (grapevine stuff) that they are going to announce an AUDIX like package for Voice Power. This would be very cool. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- NAME: Dennis S. Breckenridge UUCP: uunet!tmsoft!nebulus!dennis QTH: Toronto, Canada ELECTROMAGNETIC: 145.03Mhz ve3gss@ve3gss AMPR.ORG: [44.135.88.54] THE RIGHT CHIOCE?: (416) 733-1696 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (11/22/89)
I wanted to do this with _Watson_, but couldn't get to first base with the company. I spoke with them several times, and the conversations went something like: Me: will this work with UNIX? Them: it works will all DOS applications Me: UNIX isn't a DOS application. Them: You can use our interface. Me: Can I get info to write a device driver? Them: We alreqady supply a device driver Me: Can I get information on what ports and interrupts it uses? Them: We have a developer's kit for $xxx Me: Does it have information about the ports? Them: It tells how to use our device driver Me: Thank you. (hang up phone) *^%&^% twit! I went thru this TWICE and decided they couldn't be bothered. Too bad, the product is SERIOUSLY neat. Someone told me it does NOT run under VP/ix, but I never spent the $200 to try it. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon
corwin@polari.UUCP (Don Glover) (11/23/89)
In article <626@rsiatl.UUCP>, jgd@rsiatl.UUCP (John G. De Armond) writes: > In article <4525@gaboon.UUCP> asv@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 > >[bunch deleted] > > 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. > [rest deleted] John, Having worked with the dialogic folks I am not quite as enamored with them as you seem to be (that is any at all). The company I work for is selling a voice mail system for MSDOS based around the dialogic as our first board and we are porting it to several other boards. I suspect that if Stan is willing to write some device drivers there are many boards out there that will suit his needs fine, many at a much reduced cost from the amount dialogic will gouge hime for. Almost any board that has an on board processor will most likely serve to keep things straight while the main cpu is off servicing another task. On another note I will be interested in your investigations of dialogic under unix/ vpix. I am trying to convince our corporate officers that this would not be a horrific task, as well as trying to convice them that there might be a market for a plug and go voice mail under unix. Don Glover, the younger