subject Re: pc comm station speaker phone

[Rick Stevens]

On Wed, 2007-06-06 at 11:40 -0400, tyche at ica.net wrote:
> On Wednesday 06 June 2007 04:18, Rick Stevens wrote:
> > On Tue, 2007-06-05 at 19:57 -0400, tyche at ica.net wrote:
> > > i recently acquired a compaq pc speaker phone. this thing was made in
> > > 2000 according to the booklet with it. i didnt get the drivers. any one
> > > know if this is usable with fc?
> >
> > I've never even heard of such a beast!  Is it a combo modem/phone?  PCI,
> > USB or serial port?
> >
> > If it's PCI, try doing an "lspci" on it and post what it says.  If it's
> > USB, try "lsusb".  If it's serial, I have no idea if it's usable or
> > not.  For that matter, I don't know if it's usable on PCI or USB
> > either.  Like I said, I've never heard of it before.  Might be fun to
> > try to sort out.
> >
> 
> its an external speaker that plugs into the usb port for power, has a 12v dc 
> adapter that plugs into the wall, two 3.5mm plugs that gets plugged into the 
> sound card (mic and speaker) plus a plug that gets put into the handset plug 
> on a phone, and the handset plug gets plugged into a wire that leads to the 
> speaker.

I'm assuming there's a mic in the speaker box as well.  Otherwise I
can't see how it'd work as a speaker phone.

Smells a bit like the D-Link Eye-2-eye H.323 beastie, but that's
stand-alone (doesn't require a computer).

> there is also supposed to be a plug that gets plugged into an lcd monitor, tho 
> where that particular wire gets plugged in, gok, as there is no other ports 
> open on the speaker box. i kinda got it working on my 98 based laptop. volume 
> up as far as it will go, but with the phone handle off the hook, dont get 
> much volume from the speaker.

Weird.  I'll bet that the USB bit isn't just for power, but also how the
unit routes the audio between the handset and the mic/speaker combo.
Assuming the handset is on hook, it takes the input from the mic in the
speaker box and feeds it to the phone, and takes the earpiece sound from
the phone and plays it back through the speaker.  When off-hook, that's
all disabled.

> with what little experimentation i have done on this device, its seems like a 
> good idea gone bad. hp/compaq doesn't seem to realize that this device even 
> exists. will just have to try it out and see what happens.

Could be useful for Skype-type stuff, I suppose.

> it seems to me that it is all hardware driven. the usb-port passthrough works 
> ok. (least on the laptop).
> 
> will get off my butt and move the linux box around and see what happens. will 
> keep ya posted on progress.

Cool!  I'm going on vacation for a month, but I'll check the archives
when I get back.

> 
> thanks
> 
> tyche
> 
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer             rstevens at internap.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-         If this is the first day of the rest of my life...         -
-                        I'm in BIG trouble!                         -
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