sounds/telephony

[Ken Norris]

> Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 15:46:45 -0700
> From: Dar Scott <dsc at swcp.com>
> Subject: Re: sounds/telephony


> On Sunday, February 15, 2004, at 02:25 PM, Ken Norris wrote:
> 
>> I must say I really
>> miss HyperCard's "dial" command. Any chance of getting that feature
>> down the
>> road? I.e., a replacement for:
>> 
>> dial "1234567"
>> -- or
>> dial "1234567" with modem
> 
> But these are really at a toy level and awkward to use.
----------
Heartily disagree. Call it what you like, it doesn't get any simpler, I've
been using it flawlessly for years. If you have the right equipment it's
rock solid. I've seen fancier stuff that no one ever uses all of anyway.

I think you're just jealous ;-D
----------
> For games that have a phone to use the first might be used, but so can
> playing dial sounds.
----------
I have one that I built about a month ago that uses dial sounds in an
extended loop. In SC the basic action code for a given button looks like
this:

if "Tone" is in the userProps of the target then
  play forever (line 1 of the Tone of the target)
end if

It's just a little screen widget, but here are the things it does:

1) You can click the mouse on a phonepad simulator. Holding the mouse down
on a button plays a continuous tone until you release, for what that's
worth. It's just like a real phonepad.

2) You can use the keyboard number pad or the ones above with symbols. Like
shift/* plays the star tone. Again, the keydown plays continuous tone until
you release, the same as a phone. What's more, the button animation
simulates being pressed as if by a ghost, or like they do when you use the
mouse.

3) Typing any alpha character lights the letter in a grc and opens a
scrolling list field to names whose last name begins with the letter.
Selecting a name autodials the person's number.
----------
> For the latter, the utility is awkward, because of the need to take the
> phone off hook by hand and to hangup by hand.  There may be some uses
> where the ringing of the phone is the desired result.
----------
Nope, the HC dialer in my PB uses the modem, like we already talked about.
Of course I still have to pick up the phone immediately after it dials, or
the modem hangs up, because it's not a voice modem.
----------
> Since these are straightforward to build, these might be better in
> somebody's goodies collection than in Revolution.  Or in tips.
>
> Unfortunately, more serious phone control is more expensive or harder.
> One way to go is BlueTooth.  Another is a phone gadget that looks like
> serial to Revolution.
-----------
Eventually, I will need to get a voice modem, probably an external one. Then
I can make the computer talk on the phone with TTS for speech impaired
people.

I'm looking for a resource for good refurbished voice modems. Since speed
isn't really a factor, I think I should be able to get a few to play with
cheaply, but I haven't run across the right resources so far.

Ken N.