[VoIP] CNET for Collectors who are not Switchers

[ikjtel]

Well, perhaps this might devolve into the definition
of the word "switcher" ;-)

I have (sort of) cobbled together a frankenswitch of
sorts; it consists of a 10-level dial trunk selector
as well as a couple of SD-65718-01 Tie Trks (working
thanks to some help from Steph and John N.) and some
other misc. junque, including 48 ports on a Coastcom
channel bank (FXS, FXO, and 4W E&M).  Somewhere down
there is a KS-type busy tone and ring plant
(motorized) but not currently connected up.  Tieing it
all together is an asterisk box (courtesy of Rick
Walsh and John Novack) with an upgraded motherboard;
currently it's running Fedora 7 and asterisk 1.2.x
equipped with several of my patches including my
rotary dial speed/%brk tester application.  I also
have a bunch of 1A2 stuff that's starting to get
punched down but needs more work...

However, mounted in the 19" rack is an old Collins
R-390A (HF) receiver that is so sensitive that some
claim it goes down to the galactic noise floor.  If I
try to copy RTTY in the 14,090 KHz region it will be
completely swamped and blown away by broadband RF
noise and hash as soon as the PC (not to mention the
fluorescent lights) is powered up; no RTTY signals are
audible whatsoever.  On top of that is my general
overall paranoia about everything, in this case of
fire; leading to a rule that none of that stuff is to
be powered up unless I'm home & awake.  So, those are
my "excuses" for not being connected 24/7 to CNET.

In addition to being into vintage phones, switching,
RTTY, etc., I'm also interested in vintage computing. 
Running alongside asterisk in the server PC is a copy
of Hercules as well as a copy of a vintage IBM
mainframe computer Operating System from the 1960's
and 70's (OS/VS2 MVS/370) as well as its Time Sharing
Option (TSO).

TSO was perhaps the most widely used dial-up
time-sharing service offering in the 1960's and 70's. 
I have an old Teletype ASR-32 (used also for the RTTY
stuff) that hooks up nicely with TSO (both are
uppercase-only).  There is a crew of people who've
resurrected these beastly old IBM OS's and gotten them
running again (thankfully they're not copyrighted). 
Some of these folks seem to share a certain form of
dementia that I am familiar with (and perhaps one or
two - unnamed - folks from this VOIP list may as well
;-)  I suppose I should note that anyone who considers
himself a computing "guru" should try hacking on a
"real man's" OS such as IBM MVS - enough said ;-)

TSO was always able to communicate with "line mode"
(TTY) devices, but no one in the Hercules community
had figured out how to do so - until me.  I've created
some drivers and other code to enable TSO in Teletype
mode.  This is about as close as you can get to the
actual 1960's time-sharing experience; in fact, the
TSO version that is our legacy is definitely not
Y2K-compliant; when you logon you'll receive a message
such as:
IKJ56455I IBMUSER LOGON IN PROGRESS AT 14:15:06 ON
NOVEMBER 1, 1907

In case anyone is interested, there's further info at
the following URL's
http://www.lightlink.com/mhp/2703/
http://www.lightlink.com/mhp/3705/

Best,

Max

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