Strange question: Is anyone using their FreeBSD machine as an answering machine, using a voice modem?
Here's why I'm asking. Our traditional landline phone connection at home has been a little unreliable (long story), including the phone company turning voice mail on and off. Which is really annoying, because we have a perfectly fine answering machine that we rely on. So I decided that for a few weeks, I should try to keep track of all incoming phone calls, just to make sure they actually get here. I remembered that I have an old USB modem sitting around, a Conexant model CX93010, completely generic. Plug it in, connect it to the phone, search the web on how to enable caller ID (it's trivial): Now I can see ring signals coming in, and I can see the caller ID. With half hour of programming, I can write a script that records this data, and then I can check whether phone calls are making it. Great.
But when reading about the modem, I discovered that it can do voice (and faxes too). In theory, it should be able to be programmed to output voice, and listen and record voice, so it could become an answering machine! Then I remembered that in the mid 90s, I tried that with an ancient Hayes modem (when Hayes was still a real brand, not a command set for modems), on a Linux machine, and it was too difficult then. A little bit of reading shows that in theory this should work: There is a package called "mgetty+sendfax", which should includes something called vgetty, which in theory should be configurable to become an answering machine. But all the documentation I found was at least 10 years old.
Does all this still work? Anyone use it? Do generic cheap USB modems have good enough analog interfaces to make this feasible? Are there any packages that automate tasks like storing voice mails in files, sending them out by mail (packaged into a convenient .mp3 or .wav file), retrieving then, blinking a red light when there is mail waiting? Or did all this get forgotten with other technology from the last century, such as card punches and correction tape for typewriters?
Here's why I'm asking. Our traditional landline phone connection at home has been a little unreliable (long story), including the phone company turning voice mail on and off. Which is really annoying, because we have a perfectly fine answering machine that we rely on. So I decided that for a few weeks, I should try to keep track of all incoming phone calls, just to make sure they actually get here. I remembered that I have an old USB modem sitting around, a Conexant model CX93010, completely generic. Plug it in, connect it to the phone, search the web on how to enable caller ID (it's trivial): Now I can see ring signals coming in, and I can see the caller ID. With half hour of programming, I can write a script that records this data, and then I can check whether phone calls are making it. Great.
But when reading about the modem, I discovered that it can do voice (and faxes too). In theory, it should be able to be programmed to output voice, and listen and record voice, so it could become an answering machine! Then I remembered that in the mid 90s, I tried that with an ancient Hayes modem (when Hayes was still a real brand, not a command set for modems), on a Linux machine, and it was too difficult then. A little bit of reading shows that in theory this should work: There is a package called "mgetty+sendfax", which should includes something called vgetty, which in theory should be configurable to become an answering machine. But all the documentation I found was at least 10 years old.
Does all this still work? Anyone use it? Do generic cheap USB modems have good enough analog interfaces to make this feasible? Are there any packages that automate tasks like storing voice mails in files, sending them out by mail (packaged into a convenient .mp3 or .wav file), retrieving then, blinking a red light when there is mail waiting? Or did all this get forgotten with other technology from the last century, such as card punches and correction tape for typewriters?