Two telephony projects


1/5/97

Below are a couple of computers that I made for Ed this weekend.


The first one just needed to be able to control a modem and have some onboard storage to hold some numbers so I decided to make it very small and build it right into the serial connector. I used the modem's DSR pin to power it so we wouldn't need an external 'wall wart'. This technique is similar to the way that mice power themselves off an RS-232 port. In fact the processor that I used (PIC16C58) I've actually found in a few mice I've opened.


The second was slightly more complicated. It needed to be placed inline between another telephone device and the wall and be able to tell when the receiver is lifted. When that's detected it dials out to a predetermined number. The fun part about this one is the method used to dial the phone. In order to eliminate the need for a dialer chip the tones are calculated in software by adding two sinewaves and sent out a digital output pin as a pulse width modulated signal - so the whole dialing circuit is a 5 cent capacitor!

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