I've ordered a handset that had a good review from a guy who claimed to have tried a few different brands, so hopefully it'll be good. I won't have a modem to cram it into until my LA12 arrives, and hopefully the LA12 will work. Naturally, all of the Model 100 acoustic cups have disappeared from eBay now that I actually want a set. :) Except for one pair that comes with a case and cassette deck that I don't need, and has expensive international shipping. Sigh. Hmm, I don't know the number of a single dial-up modem anywhere. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net> http://www.nf6x.net/

@Tony I've not encountered that particular piece, but it sure sounds neat.. and really complex. The Viking unit gets by with a single PIC micro (I think it's a 16C84) and a set of 8 DIP switches. Depending on DIP settings, the last digit of the number you dial on one port determines the behavior of the "network" and the other port - do you ring-through normally, with a distinctive ring, with / without Caller ID, get a busy, get a reorder tone (howler), SIT tones, etc. The DIP sets basic behaviors, like automatic ring-down (hotline service), rings then ring-down, and a few other options. Like most Viking products, it's intended as an accessory for PBX, small / home office or problem-solving device for an installer or designer. They also handle paging system integration, call sequencers, etc. line concentrators, etc. On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 3:54 PM, Jules Richardson < jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 11:57 PM, drlegendre . <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote: I built and sold something like that 20 years ago. It had an 8048-family micro controller in it and real POTS-like front-end chips (SLICs - Subscriber Line ICs). You could dial one number and get 1 to call 2 or vice versa like a straight call, or you could call other numbers to simulate call failures and test your dialing software. I used it in-house to write up autodial scripts, but we sold a few as a product. We once bought a competitor's product with 4 lines to see how it performed. I still have it. I should go check the model number. They are great for VCF-type shows, and really handy if you have old kit that only does dial-up for external comms. -ethan

On Apr 17, 2014, at 20:57 , drlegendre . <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote: THank you for the offer. Another set of cups showed up on eBay this afternoon, and I grabbed it. That sounds like an interesting and useful product. I'll look into it, and maybe get one if it's not too expensive. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net> http://www.nf6x.net/

Can you run thru the asterisk POTS line cars with the frequencies, etc, or do those only handle voice grade frequencies? I am suspecting not, but sounds like a good place to ask the question. thanks jim On 4/17/2014 8:57 PM, drlegendre . wrote:

Ok, well I guess I stand corrected. Viking now calls out "Unlimited" data bandwidth on the DLE-300. They must have made a couple of mods since the 2001 era such that it opened up the data bandwidth quite a bit. Obviously now, it's not "unlimited" - but I suspect that it's not limited beyond any of the typical constraints of a basic twisted-pair POTS line connection. 56K / 128K should be non-issue. You might even get more, I guess..? On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 12:11 AM, drlegendre . <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote:

I've received my novelty handset and an acoustic coupler set for the Tandy 100/102/200. Sadly, the acoustic cup set was previously owned by a smoker. Blech! I'll be able to try it out at home with that telephone line simulator, but do any of y'all know of any retro dialup BBSes that A) support 300 baud and B) support dumb terminals without ANSI graphics? I've tried a few random numbers from a BBS list I found online. Of the two that I was even able to connect to, they didn't appear to spit out anything meaningful on the TELCOM screen on my Model 200. Maybe the server didn't downshift to 300 baud, or maybe it was spitting out ANSI graphics that TELCOM doesn't display properly. I'll probably try more numbers from that short BBS list later when I have time, and I'll report back if I'm successful. The list that I found: http://www.telnetbbsguide.com/dialbbs/dialbbs.htm -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net> http://www.nf6x.net/

Glad to hear that the DLE-300 is providing some entertainment. It really is a neat little box, very smart the way the features work - control codes for the hardware embedded in the dialing string, in most cases. Sorry to hear about the issues with the retro-handset and smoky cups. FWIW, I have a set of very clean and non-smoky cups here, but I'm not quite ready to part with them, as they're the only set I have. If you just want to play gently with them, and you're willing to promise a safe return, I might loan them out to you... so hit me off-list On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 1:46 PM, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:

IIRC thos cups do come apart. I think you can stretch the rubber part and free the lip of the plastic base cover. It's then obvious. This might help you clean them, sicne some parts could then be dunked in clenaing fluids withotu damage. Also IRIC there is a bit of circuitry i nthe 'earpiece' cup, the oen that contains anelectret microhpone. Somethign liek a dual op-amp IC acting as a preamplfiier. The 'moutpiece' cup is a small loudspeaker wired to that 2.5mm jack ('phone') socket, I think it ends up goign to 2 of the pins of the DIN plug. -tony

If you're willing to risk the UV issue, it seems that bright, direct sunlight alone has a way of de-stanking a lot of things in this category. If you have a lot of daylight, consider leaving your parts out in it. A rainshower or two probably won't hurt, either. And while I've never heard of it (for rubber), I can't see how packing any of these parts in activated charcoal would ever cause damage. Obviously, you need to severely restrict the ingress of carbon particles into the mechanisms - but that taken care of, it's a totally safe process. Cheesecloth as a barrier will probably get you there. On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 3:37 PM, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:

At least i the set I have (somewhere), the cable _between_ the cups unplugs form one end, I think the mouthpiece (speaker) end. I also seem to remember that the cable to the M100 is plugged into the PCB in the earpiece (microphone) cup, so that actually it will come apart without desoldering. -tony

I have a similar, but rather older (:-)) device on my bench. A 'Telephone Network Simulator' made by 'Telephone Analysis Systems'. It's a 3U high rack unit, packed with electronics (there must be over 300 ICs in there [1]) it does what you describe. It has 2 telephone line sockets to which you can assign telephone numbers, you can then dial one from the other. You can configure it to give the dialing, ringing, etc, tones for just about any national telephone network (so you can make sure your modem will correctly work, say, on the real French network), you can set the ringing single frequency, votlage ,on/off times, etc. And the line current. It iwll monitor the signal levels in both directions, it will let you degrade the signal (add noise, etc) to see how that messes things up. Mine is the base model, it only lets you degrade the signal in one direction at ta time. I has both RS232 and GPIB ibnerfaces on the back, so far I've not figured out how to talk to it, what the commands are, etc. Docuemtnatio nfo said device does not seem to exist :-( [1] Inclduing 6 microprocessors/microcontrollers. An 8085 to control the whole thing. Anotehr 8085 to control the telephone lines. An 8049 to do tone generation. An 8041 to run the VF display. Yet aonter 8085 to boot the SSP. adn a TMS320 DSP to handle signal degredation, etc. Why do I ahve it? Well, I wanted something to interconenct a pair of dial-up modems, much for the reasons you suggested. I sketched out a simple design (state machine, line control relays, etc) and found t omake it -- includign the PSU bits, etc, would cost as much as a cheap uniut on Ebay. Of course the latter owuld probaly not last as long, and would be a lot harder to repair. And then I saw this thing on E-bay, described as non-working. For $25 (+4 times as much to ship it), it was the cheapest. And even if I couldn't fix it, I guessed there would be useful bits inside, like the PSU. Well. after re-assembling it correctly and repairing the pwoer switch (which had been mangled by the wrong screws beign removed first), it would power up but fail the self-test. Re-seatign al lteh socketed ICs got it to past the tests, but it didn't work. Replacing a couple of ICs on the line interface board got it going. I then had to replace the backup battery (used to store the user configurations, nothing too important) and make up various cable adapters. Oh yes, it wil lalso simualute 2 and 4 wire privae lines, if you need to test that flavour of modem. In a sense it's total overkill for what I _need_,one of the simpler modern units would be fine. I don't need signal degredation, the ability to add external balance networks, , the ability to generate the correct tones and rignign signal for various countries, etc. But it's a nice unit, and I guess I also collect classic test gear. -tony