Interesting use of a GS

[TWS <adoyson@nccn.net>]

I emailed Dave Lyons about some info on his webpage.      check it out:

Subject:  Re: Question about your homepage
   Date: Thu, 18 Jun 98 12:51:32 -0700
   From:  Dave Lyons <dlyons@netcom.com>
     To: "tws" <adoyson@nccn.net>



>>Caller ID to Serial kit from ITU Technologies. I have this hooked to
>>an Apple IIgs, which controls a BetaBrite message board over my TV to
>>announce incoming calls.
>
>This sounds interesting.  Could you tell me more about it?  I use the
>IIgs.

Sure...what sort of stuff do you want to know?  I have a IIgs whose
entire purpose in life is to sit on top of my entertainment center and
communicate with various things:  Caller ID box, message board, and
PatchBoy (my homebrew audio/video routing switcher...some details on web

page...I keep meaning to draw up the schematic, but haven't done it).

The GS is running an Applesoft BASIC program with a few assembly
routines
poked into memory to do some of the serial port I/O (in straight
Applesoft you can't find out whether there's a character waiting to be
read from the serial port, without *waiting* for one if there turns out
not to be one ready...so I needed some assembly routines).

I'll be happy to share my software with anybody who wants to try setting

up something similar.  No idea whether similar models of Beta-Bride
message boards are still available, but it's certainly possible.

The Caller-ID-to-serial product that ITU Technologies currently offers
is
not physically the same as the one I bought ($40 kit), but it looks
equivalent.  Mine has 4 rubber feet & a serial connector...the one they
have now is sorta "built into" a serial connector.  The serial data you
get is really passed straight through from the phone line (it's a
1200-baud data stream on the phone line), so I would be surprised if
there was any change in the data format.

Normally the GS tells the message board to just display the time of day.

When there have been phone calls, it shows the time followed by a number

in angle brackets, like "12:00 PM <5>" to show that there were 5 phone
calls.  The time is Red, the count is Green.  (Hitting Return on the GS
keyboard acknowledges the calls & makes the number go away.)

When a call comes in, the info scrolls across the message board about 3
times before returning to the time-of-day display.  Something like "212
999-9999 SMITH FRED New York" (number in green, name in red, state in
orange).  It takes about 1.5 seconds longer than I would like for the
info to start scrolling...if I spent a little time on my string
processing I could speed this up (it goes a little faster if there is no

Calling Name information in the data packet from the phone
company...that
depends on your local phone company).

Pacific Bell charges me $6.50/month, I think, for having the Caller ID
data delivered.  Until a few months ago, there were only sending the
shorter "calling number" packets, but now they send the more flexible
packet format, which can (but does not always) include a name.

My software hard-codes certain phone numbers to show the names, even if
the phone company didn't send their info.

The "state" display is just a decoding of the area code...I found a web
site listing all the North American area codes & put them into my
Applesoft software.  Every 6 months or so I check for recent additions
to
the master area code list & update my DATA statements.

Well, that's a start.  (Thanks for getting me to write some text about
this...ask me some -more- stuff, and when I'm done I'll edit it & put
the
text on my web page for other curious folks to see.)

--Dave