[coco] Caller ID

[Roger Taylor]

At 06:42 AM 2/12/2006, you wrote:

>----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Banerjee" Sent: Sunday, February 
>12, 2006 6:42 AM
>
><snip>
>>Coco-related:
>>   Many years ago, there was an article in "Electronics Now" that showed
>>the format for (telephone) caller ID.  It was a series of signals sent
>>between rings that happened to use 1 cycle at 2400hz to be "1" and one
>>cycle 1200hz to be "0".  The format only accomodated for a number.  Does
>>anyone happen to know the current format for caller ID?  I had thought at
>>one time to use the coco cassette to build a soft caller-id box (you could
>>have fun with that one -- IF NUMBER="telemarketer" then HANGUP).  I was
>>thinking of using the ring signal (of course adequately protecting the
>>coco against it) as some sort of trigger.
>>   I was hoping someone on the list had a more modern knowledge of this
>>type of thing than me.  Any insight would be appreciated.  Thanks.
>>                       - Aaron
>
>I too, had thought of doing something like this.
>
>When I read this, a bell rang and I decided to do a search for info on the 
>caller ID (CID) thng.
>This link does not reveal the baud rate. It does show the format.
>
>http://picbasic.com/resources/callerid.htm


Back around 1995 I built a system consisting of two CoCos, an external 
modem with Caller ID capabilities, and a long 4-wire phone line running 
through my apartment along the wall.

CoCo 1 in my office room used a small ML routine from BASIC using the USR 
function to wait for modem messages.  The BASIC program would lookup the 
returned phone number in a local database (DATA statements) to replace the 
caller's name if I wanted to, but in either case the # and a name would be 
shown on my TV screen in the living room.

The living room CoCo was hidden in the entertainment center and was always 
in CLOADM mode.  CoCo 1 would CSAVEM a packet to CoCo 2 whenever the phone 
rang, and CoCo 2 would show the info on a black screen using large white 
characters (using my unreleased Video Titler program).

All I had to do when someone called is use the remote control's INPUT 
button which switched to the Video IN channel and voila... caller 
revealed.  At one time I think I even used my Speech Sound Pak to speak the 
name of the caller, but it took too long for this whole process so I 
ditched the idea.

When friends would come over and see that, they would all freak out and ask 
where in the hell could they get one of those.  :)  Ofcourse, nobody ever 
really knew of my programming skills except my wife so I usually didn't go 
into detail about things that would only baffle them.

The absolute best use of this system was that (I can't believe I'm 
revealing this info) I could find out what pay phone people were calling me 
from in town.  I drove around one weekend and wrote down all the payphone 
#'s and locations and I used this to replace the caller's name so that it 
said, "Payphone, EZ-Mart - E. Main St." or "Wal-Mart Payphone", etc.  See, 
back in 1995 I was kinda dating more than usual and I would frequently get 
calls from friends and female friends getting in my business or just 
bugging the heck out of me, so I would sometimes know more than they knew I 
knew and I could tell how far they were from my house, etc. and use this to 
my advantage if I needed to.  In fact, I printed each call out.  I could go 
out of town for 3 days and come back and yank a hardcopy from the printer 
showing exactly what had been going on.