Received: by bu-cs.BU.EDU (5.58/4.7) id AA27340; Fri, 6 Jan 89 00:44:12 EST Message-Id: <8901060544.AA27340@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Date: Fri, 6 Jan 89 00:05:58 EST From: The Moderator Reply-To: TELECOM@bu-cs.BU.EDU Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #5 To: TELECOM@bu-cs.bu.edu Status: O TELECOM Digest Fri, 6 Jan 89 00:05:58 EST Volume 9 : Issue 5 Today's Topics: TENCON - IEEE conference in India 1989 Re: A Tiny Tim Re: A Tiny Tim How To Detirmine Your Ringback Number Re: Telephone gizmo for one-line customers Re: Old Princess phones Re: Time marches on... [This is a re-transmission of V9 #5. For reasons unknown, the first mailing got mangled; about half of you got only a partial copy.] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hou2d!krsm@clyde.att.com To: comp-dcom-telecom@clyde Subject: TENCON - IEEE conference in India 1989 Date: 5 Jan 89 05:37:52 GMT ************************************************************************ TENCON 1989 IN INDIA ************************************************************************ IEEE Region 10 Conference Theme : Information Technologies for the 90's Dates : 22, 23, 24 Nov 1989 Place : Bombay, India Major Topics : Networks Communication Systems Signal Processing Computers & Applications Circuits & Devices Energy Socio-Economic Issues People interested in submitting papers organizing sessions panel discussions Please send me your session proposal and / or paper by e-mail first. Please include the following: Title of the session Summary of the session Sub-topics of the session Potential / actual papers (title, author, estimated number of pages abstract, if any) Details of the session organizer(s) / chair(s) (address, phone(s), fax, e-mail address bio, IEEE experience, session experience) For a paper please include: Title of the paper Author's details (address, phone, fax, e-mail address) Abstract Estimated number of pages You have to send a hard copy of your submittal later. Thank you, again. With warm regards, K.R.S. Murthy AT&T Bell Labs Room 1G-306 480 Red Hill Road Middletown NJ 07748 (201)-615-4629 E-mail ..!att!hou2d!krsm ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jan 89 10:18:57 +1100 (Fri) To: comp-dcom-telecom%munnari.oz@munnari.oz From: rowan@otc.oz (Rowan Munchenberg) Subject: Re: A Tiny Tim Organization: OTC Development Unit, Australia At the University of Adelaide (Australia) one of the Researchers has developed a device called "CEDRIC" which determines where on a screen a users eye is directed. This is used to enable severly handicapped to interface to a computer and possibly voice synthesis software. The user selects words from screen menus, or letters if the word is not available, to form sentences or instructions to the computer. This summary is of the work about 12 months previous. If there is interest I can contract the person involved, Andrew Downing, for more details. To my knowledge this is a product that is already marketed but I am not certain of this. e-mail to me for further information if required. Rowan Munchenberg Overseas Telecommunications Commission, Australia SNAIL: GPO Box 7000 Sydney Australia 2001 E-MAIL: uunet!munnari!otc!rowan uunet!munnari!rowan@otc.oz ------------------------------ To: att!ptsfa!ames!comp-dcom-telecom@ames.arc.nasa.gov From: nesac2!jec@ames.arc.nasa.gov (John Carter ATLN SADM) Subject: Re: A Tiny Tim Date: 6 Jan 89 01:31:30 GMT In article , gmeeca!sb@tis.llnl.gov writes: > My father is in need of information about hooking an automobile accident > victim to a computer (hopefully to give her speech). Regretably, there is > not too much to work with, as she is brain damaged enough to make all motion > most complex. Are there joy sticks that can be operated by tongue? Is there > someone who has equipment that can read eye position so that she can look up > words on a screen. It appears that most of the "smarts" are still intact, > but none of the wiring is hooked to a voluntary controller. Many requests for interfaces for handicapped people are posted on Usenet, but I don't remember seeing anyone pointed to the handicap forum on Compu$erve. The time it would take to make a request for this type information would be very inexpensive (even at $12+/hour), and the responses would be from people who are involved with (or are themselves) handicapped persons. I haven't been on the handicap forum, so I don't know the absolute level of expertise there, but if some of the other 'hardware' related forums are any example, this would be an excellent place to look. If the original poster will contact me, I'll try to retrieve data related to the specifics of the handicapped person's abilities. -- USnail: John Carter, AT&T, 401 W. Peachtree, FLOC 2932-6, Atlanta GA 30308 Video: ...att!nesac2!jec Voice: 404+581-6239 The machine belongs to the company. The opinions are mine. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jan 89 03:15:58 EST From: Miguel_Cruz@ub.cc.umich.edu To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu Subj: How To Locate Ringback Number Roger Haaheim asks about how to find the ringback number for your switch withot the phone company's help. On most ESS systems, if you set up a reasonably intelligent modem to dial each possible exchange followed by the last 4 digits of your phone number (for instance, if your phone number was 552-4563, then you would write a program to dial 220-4563, 221-4563, etc...) until it hits a dial tone. For instance, for my number, the ringback exchange is 952. If I dial 952 and the last 4 digits of my phone number, I get a dial tone. Then I can hang up for a half second, pick it up, and hang it up again. About 3 seconds later, it will ring. What fun. I think I explained this before (and in just a befuddling fashion), but each physical switch handles one or more logical exchanges. For instance, in Ann Arbor, one switch handles numbers with the prefixes 662, 663, 665, 668, and 930. The "phantom" ringback exchanges generally used by Michigan Bell start at 951. Therefore, for my switch, 662 phone numbers use 951, 663 phone numbers use 952, and so on. Another switch in town handles 994, 995, 996, 761, and 769. 994 numbers use 951 for ringback, 995 numbers use 952, and so on. If you dial your ringback prefix and the last 4 digits of someone else's phone number, you will get a busy signal. Note that there is no guarantee that your BOC will use 95x's for ringback. In fact, there is no real guarantee that your system will be anything like I described. But as far as I know most are. Some older systems have a 2 or 3 digit sequence which you follow by a ring code and hang up to have your phone ring back. Some of the sequences I have seen are 419 and 79. Ring codes are 2 digits, neither of which is a 9 or 0. 11 generates a normal ring, others (23, 46, etc., generate various combinations of short and long rings, apparently for testing party lines). So, in one of these areas you might have to dial 7911 or 41911 then hang up, in order to make your phone ring. [Moderator's Note: The main thing that I do not like about this approach is the ringing of *random telephones looking for something else.* This is just a variation on the programs which search for carrier by dialing everyone else in the community without regard to their desire to be left alone. I do not like 'demon-dialer' software. It causes an invasion of privacy of others. P.Townson] ------------------------------ To: telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU From: Dan Chaney Subject: Re: Telephone gizmo for one-line customers Date: 5 Jan 89 10:13:13 GMT In article soley@ontenv writes: >X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.uucp >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 3, message 7 > >In article , black%ll-micro@ll-vlsi.arpa (Jerry Glomph Black) writes: >: I just read a short review in PC Week about a $400 gizmo which >: answers your phone, then issues a robot-voice announcement to the >.... -- Is there a way to differentiate between FAX and regular modem-logins? I understand that there are el-cheapo FAX programs that, using your modem, act as a document-based fax machine. These programs are much cheaper, on the order of $50-$100. What I would like to be able to do is have the computer pick up the phone and run either the FAX program if this is a fax call or go ahead and run a login to Unix. I can also for see DOS people wanting to choose between FAX, UUCP and possibly a third BBS package. Am I dreaming or is this at all possible? I do not have any specs on FAX protocol but would be interested if anyone has such data. >: equipment receives the incoming call. Seems like a good way to >: get double use of one line. ^In this case, possible even triple or quadruple. Assuming that the other end will give you a carrier long enough to decide between human, FAX, UUCP or just a recording from Sears telling you that your Christmas order has finally arrived. >: >: The $400 seems overpriced for what you get > -- Dan Chaney {uunet and the like}!ukma!chaney chaney@ms.uky.edu chaney@ukma.BITNET If a 100-year old Roman Catholic offers you | "Life is but a state of mind" a clever quote, don't take his word at it. | - Ben Rand ------------------------------ From: smb@research.att.com Date: Thu, 05 Jan 89 09:58:38 EST To: TELECOM@bu-cs.bu.edu Subject: Re: Old Princess phones Cc: kent@wsl.dec.com Touch-Tone phones often suffer from problems where one one row or column doesn't make contact, so you only get a single tone generated. The trouble is almost always dirty contacts. Take apart the phone, remove the plastic covering the keypad internals, and gently clean all of the switch contacts -- you can see them move when you press the buttons. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jan 89 09:11:00 PST From: laura_halliday@mtsg.ubc.ca To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu Subject: Re: Time marches on... [Moderator's Note: We did not get the original message to which Laura is responding. Apparently someone wrote direct.] > Somewhere I once saw a sheet intitled "Instructions for Use". It went into > some detail on how to use a dial-phone. 'Place finger in slot over the > desired number and rotate the dial clockwise until the stop is encountered. > Lift your finger, releasing the dial. Once the dial has returned ....' > > If anyone has a copy of this, be it serious and wholly tongue-in-cheek, I > would like a copy and I suspect others would as well. I've seen such things in phone books. Try the London (England) white pages - probably the A-D volume. I'll check with the public library here in Vancouver and see what I can find... cheers, laura ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest *********************