Been shopping for a modem lately? Now that the V.90 standard has finally been hammered out you may be considering it. Also, the prices of external 56K modems are finally affordable to the working Amigan. Among the usual features to consider are supported compression routines, fax, Caller ID, and now voice mail.
Voice mail is nothing new to the Amiga. A long time ago GVP's Phonepak turned your Zorro based Amiga into a professional message center. If you have ever called NCAUGer Paul Sadlik (architect), then no doubt you have witnessed this fine product in action. However, since GVP-M has resurfaced they have not brought back this venerable item. Fortunately, there are several Amiga programs that take advantage of the voice mail capability of these new modems as a replacement.
I decided to purchase the Zoom Dual Mode 56K external modem with fax and voice capabilities. I have always liked Zoom modems and had owned the 2400 and 14.4 bps models. Another reason I chose the Zoom Dual Mode is that many ISPs, including CAIS, originally supported the K-Flex standard and are in the process of converting to the ITU's V.90 standard. This Zoom modem supports both. Setting up the modem was as simple as any modem setup. Miami had no problems reconfiguring my setup to my ISP. Getting a reliable 56K connection on the other hand is fodder for another article.
Choosing a suitable fax/voice mail package is as simple as downloading demo versions off Aminet. The three I have tried are STFax Pro, PhoneWizard, and AVMSuite. Unfortunately, GVPFax does not support voice or RTG screens without screen mode promotion, thus it was not considered for this article.
The Zoom modem I have features the Rockwell chipset. While this is not uncommon for most voice modems, it presents an issue when using on the Amiga. That is because these programs can only playback your phone messages via the Amiga sound channels for Zyxel modems. Others like my Zoom will only playback messages via the modem's internal speaker (bad quality) or your phone line.
The problem lies in that none of the respective program authors were able to get the Rockwell codec in portable C code. Dr. Alberto Villarica (AVM Suite) was able to get a codec, but it was in X86 assembly code. Without this codec, the Amiga is unable to convert from the format in which messages are stored by the modem to IFF or WAV files. If it could convert the messages, then it would be possible to play them back through your Amiga sound channels. AmiPhone (Internet phone program) may provide a solution to this, but getting the respective programmers together will require some work, Paul?
In order to record or playback your messages you must either press a number key on your phone to clear the dial tone, or leave the phone off hook for a few minutes until the phone company gives up on you and lets your phone line go dead. Obviously here is where the Zyxel's ability to playback messages via the Amiga sound port has an advantage.
First up to bat was STFax Pro (see screenshot). STFax came on two floppies in a CD jewel case. One disk contained the program, the other the necessary MUI files. I did not like that the installation script placed MUI files on your Amiga without checking versions. I was very concerned that older versions of certain MUI classes would overwrite my current versions. Aside from that, installation was straightforward.
STFax attempts to initialize your modem from the start. There are ways to tweak the settings to get it to work just right, but it is minimal at best. Unfortunately, I was not able to get STFax to record the greetings using the phone line, let alone set up my voice mail box, with my modem. I had no problems setting STFaxs fax routines.
Setting up the voice mailboxes is not as easy with the others programs tested. STFax does offer multiple voice mailboxes, passwords, fax back and a mini-bbs system to boot. You first have to record greetings or messages related to certain events. Then you have to create a "script" using those prerecorded greetings. STFax can use wav files, but a lack of a Rockwell codec prevented the Amiga from converting the wav into a modem friendly format.
Other nice features found in STFax include fax forwarding, scheduler, speakerphone, AREXX support, printer driver intercept, and datatype support. I will keep trying to make STFax work, Simone Tellini fortunately is very patient in assisting registered users. I especially look forward to using the Caller ID feature.
Moving on, I decided to give PhoneWizard by Matthais Bock a try (see screenshot). Phone Wizard is strictly a voice mail program; there is no support for your modem's faxing capabilities. It didn't require MUI, and had a nifty configuration tool that detects your modem's chipset. Recording the greeting was simple using the phone line. PhoneWizard is the least complex out of the three packages tested.
Faults with PhoneWizard are that you cannot have multiple voice mail boxes, and it had trouble detecting when someone hung up. Messages often had several seconds of dead air at the end of them. Unless you register the program, you are limited to storage of two incoming messages.
Last up was AVMSuite by Dr. Alberto Villarica (see screenshot). AVM also requires MUI for GUI layout. Installation is done via a simple installer script. An installation doc file also assists with the basic installation and setup of AVM. Following his instructions, I had my simple voice mail box up and running.
AVM also features built in faxing capabilities, phonebook, Caller ID, and event scheduling like STFax Pro. AVM can alternate your greeting based on the day of the week or time of day. However, AVM is limited to just three voice mail boxes. The faxing portion of AVM is handling by a GNU port of EFax. AVM like STFax can function as a printer driver to fax documents directly from your applications.
AVM is shareware, but at the time of this writing Dr. Villarica told me that he would soon release the source code for others to improve the package. The version of AVM I got off Aminet was from 1995. Sending email to the good doctor will get you the needed keyfiles to unlock all the advanced features of AVM for free.
Hopefully this is wear someone can come in and write a codec for my Zoom modem. Also, since this program is 3 years old, it does not take advantage of the latest MUI has to offer like drag and drop, cut and paste, and window configuration. AVM also sent a particularly loud and nasty beep to those who wished to leave a message. I don't know if this is respective to my Zoom modem, but you can supposedly alter the beep via a configuration file.
In all, I cannot endorse one particular voice mail program for the Amiga. PhoneWizard was quick and easy to setup, but did not feature the capabilities that AVM or STFax Pro did. STFax Pro was the visually most pleasing with advanced features, but also the most difficult to get to work reliably. AVM Suite was powerful (as well as free), but is starting to show its age and neglect. Try them all to see which you prefer.
