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From: cramer@athens.tmc.edu (Bill Cramer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Mac as a telephone answering machine?
Message-ID: <1990Feb9.145320.28022@iex.uucp>
Date: 9 Feb 90 14:53:20 GMT
References: <1990Feb8.072021.17778@deimos.cis.ksu.edu>
Sender: brazile@iex.uucp (Robert Brazile)
Distribution: usa
Organization: IEX Corporation, Dallas
Lines: 38

In article <1990Feb8.072021.17778@deimos.cis.ksu.edu> jxf@phobos.cis.ksu.edu (Jerry Frain) writes:
>Ya know, I was thinking the other day, wouldn't it be neato if you
>could set your Mac up to be a telephone answering machine?
>
>Doesn't appear to be too difficult.  Run a program that sets the modem
>up for auto-answer.  When the phone rings, the computer answers and 
>plays a recording stored in a disk file.
>

Well, yes, such a beast is possible, and maybe even available for the 
Mac.  Said cards are avialable for the IBM-PC market -- the one that
I'm vaguely familiar with has four lines, can play messages, can
record messages, and can understand DTMF ("Press 6 to hear Brother 
Larry's advice on sin ..." :-).

In the commercial market, this makes sense -- the computer is on all of the 
time, record and playback facilities are a whole lot more versatile than
on your average PhoneMate, computer cost can be justified by the savings
realized from not using humans to answer the phone, etc.  The software
required to set up the recording parameters doesn't really require a
whizbang user interface since humans seldom use it except to playback 
messages -- a low-res character-based PC interface is sufficient, hence
putting it on a Mac would jack up the price without adding much 
additional value.

I don't really see much of a market for home use of a computer-based
answering machine.  I sure don't want to leave my $$$ computer (mac or
otherwise) up all day and night waiting to record phone calls from 
aluminum siding salecritters :-)

Anyways, that's my opinion -- possible, but don't expect to see it
soon (now that I've said that, sure as heck someone will build it
and make serious $$$ at it!)

Bill Cramer			| (214)612-2600
IEX Corporation  		| {uunet,convex,attctc}!iex!cramer
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