[Discuss] Another telephone question

[Patrick]

On Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:32:27 -0800
David Bronaugh wrote:

> D. S. wrote:
> > If you have wvdial installed, that might be your best bet. For ex,
> >
> > $ wvdial
> > ATZ
> > ATDT3101010
> >
> > adapted from:
> > http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/bigarch/archive-eighth/msg00206.html
> >   
> As far as I know, this will attempt negotiation.

Well, yes.  The manpage describes wvdial as `intelligent',
meaning it likes to make the more obvious, low-level decisions on
its own, but `less flexible' as well, for pretty much the same
reason; you can't take low-level control of what it does, because
it does that internally.

> 
> If you -don't- want that, read this: 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_modem_command_set
> 
> I think you can probably switch from voice to data mode once this is done.

But after reading the voice-mode bugs mentioned there, I probably
don't want to.

Seems better to point pppd at an auto-generated chat script
in /tmp [see below], allow enough time for it to dial an 11-digit
number, then poff it before any handshaking [read: annoying beeps
at the receiving end] starts up.  By then I would have picked up
a real phone on the same line, so if the modem hangs up before
the first ring, that's fine.  Preferable, even.

I really wanted to avoid writing out a separate chat script for
each number, but these seem inevitable.  A single database file
of human-readable names, numbers, and possibly addresses [echoed,
when calling the script with an -a option or something], seems a
lot easier to maintain.

No problem, just
echo -n "[standard `ABORT ON' stuff]
[...]
ATDT" > /tmp/[name]
echo $num >> /tmp/[name]
echo "[standard end-of-chat-script stuff]" >> /tmp/[name]
and voila, temp-file!  Let pppd read from that, so I don't have
to.

Thanks David, and D. S.  I've got a good general idea now, just
have to do some reading [thanks for the links too, btw] and work
out the specifics.


> 
> David

Patrick.

-- 
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves.
		-- Thomas Carlyle