Telecom-Request%usc-eclc@brl-bmd.UUCP (Telecom-Request@usc-eclc) (10/15/83)
TELECOM Digest Saturday, 15 Oct 1983 Volume 3 : Issue 75
Today's Topics:
MCI Mail
Re: TELECOM Digest V3 #72
Call Waiting on Data Line
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Date: 13 Oct 1983 1731-PDT
Subject: MCI Mail
From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT@USC-ISIB.ARPA>
I just completed the initiation dialog to the MCI mail service. It is
an interesting dialog, in which the system asks questions such as your
social security number, and mother's maiden name, for identification,
and allows you to specify your own unique ID code if you don't like
the one the system generates from your name. After this, a series of
survey questions are asked, hoping the user will provide answers. For
each question, a simple <CR> indicates you don't wish to answer; and
one may quit the survey at any time without disturbing the service
application previously entered.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no cost to establishing yourself
as a user; only when you actually send something. I think you can set
up a recipient address on-line, also without charge.
I can't tell what kind of hardware the system was that did the
querying, but backspace is character delete, Ctrl/U works for delete
line, after logging in, and Ctrl/R works as a retype. Other control
characters are taken as a delimiter, and RUB characters are ignored.
This leads me to believe that the application is running under VMS.
If anybody is interested in playing with this thing or establishing
their own account, the number is 800-323-7751. (100-300baud/1200baud)
<>IHM<>
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Date: Thu, 13 Oct 83 16:37:18 EDT
From: Ron Natalie <ron@brl-vgr>
Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V3 #72
It's not the "beep" that causes the phone to hang up as near as I can
tell (although it may glith up the screen). No amount of screaming,
humming, beeping, or whistling into an extension causes my modem to
quit. However all the people around here (C&P) who have call waiting
also notice a click just before the beep which is the line being
interupted momentarily. Not only is this heard by the call waiting
user but is heard by the person he is currently talking to as well.
This interuption is enough for our computers to say "oh well, he
dropped carrier." In addition the click occurs again when one of the
parties hangs up while in "hold" mode.
Someone on UNIX-WIZARDS a while back put out a modification to the
modem control driver to ignore short interuptions of carrier.
-Ron
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Date: 12 Oct 83 17:33 EDT (Wed)
From: Christopher J. Tengi <TENGI@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Call Waiting on Data Line
It is true that call waiting can cause problems when a modem is being
used on the line, although you may not be disconnected. When I first
got my phone (from good old NJ Bell), I had the call waiting feature
included since there was no additional service charge. I have a Vadic
3400 series modem that I use to hook up to Rutgers and every now and
then I would notice strange things happening to my terminal screen.
One time I decided to listen in after the screen got messed up and
sure enough, I heard the second call waiting beep and the screen had
more garbage on it. This was most annoying while editing as the beep
caused bogus characters to be entered into the buffer. I don't know
of any device to mask the beep, so I just punted the service instead.
/GTen
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End of TELECOM Digest
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