voice mail for 386ix

[Don Glover]

In article <626 at rsiatl.UUCP>, jgd at rsiatl.UUCP (John G. De Armond) writes:
> In article <4525 at gaboon.UUCP> asv at gaboon.UUCP (Stan Voket) writes:
> >
> >
> >I've been toying with the idea of putting a voice mail board in my 
> >386.  The Dialogic I saw at Unix Expo has 386ix drivers but is an OEM 
> >[bunch deleted] 
> 
> Stan,
> 
> I'm not sure that the less intelligent voice cards such as the Bigmouth
> will be very satisfactory under unix.  They depend on the main CPU having
> essentially real time response and almost dedicated disk I/O.  I'd 
> suggest you take another look at the Dialogic card.  I've done a large
> project around this card.  It is a dream to work with.  The board has
> its own multitasking executive that handles the board functions.  The
> host machine communicates through a series of queues, implemented as
> shared memory, and interrupts.  It will fit very well into the Unix way
> of doing things.  I know that Dialogic has a driver for Unix available
> for the board.
> [rest deleted]

John,

Having worked with the dialogic folks I am not quite as enamored with
them as you seem to be (that is any at all).  The company I work for
is selling a voice mail system for MSDOS based around the dialogic
as our first board and we are porting it to several other boards.  I suspect
that if Stan is willing to write some device drivers there are many boards
out there that will suit his needs fine, many at a much reduced cost from
the amount dialogic will gouge hime for.  Almost any board that has an
on board processor will most likely serve to keep things straight while
the main cpu is off servicing another task.  
 
On another note I will be interested in your investigations of dialogic
under unix/ vpix.  I am trying to convince our corporate officers that
this would not be a horrific task, as well as trying to convice them that
there might be a market for a plug and go voice mail under unix.

Don Glover,
the younger