131 lines
7.0 KiB
Plaintext
131 lines
7.0 KiB
Plaintext
FileName : ISDN.TXT
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Written By : Silent Death
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You can take your modem and toss it in the garbage. It's obsolete, slow
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and incapable of keeping up with the race for faster and faster data rates.
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Just when you thought it was safe to buy a new high-speed modem someone had to
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come along and leapfrog modem technology itself.
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Now there's a purely digital phone system just around the corner that may
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change telephone communications forever. It's called an Integrated Systems
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Digital Network (ISDN) and it differs from our current telephone system in one
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major way - it's digital instead of analog.
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Telephones were created to allow people to talk to each other. When you
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talk into a phone, your voice vibrates the element inside a microphone. This
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microphone creates a change in voltage which is fed through wires to another
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telephone. This same voltage fluctuation goes into an amplifier which then
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vibrates a speaker, producing sound. This analog signal is fine for voice
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communication but not for computer data communication.
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Computers use digital information, just ONs and OFFs, instead of voltage
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fluctuations, to convey information. ONs and OFFs just don't work very well
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over the phone, which is why we use a modem to convert digital information
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into sound before it is sent over the phone.
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But data converted to analog form is prone to errors caused by noise and
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other technical problems. With more and more information now in digital form,
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phone companies all over the world decided that making a digital phone network
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(ISDN) would be a good idea. Instead of converting fax and computer data into
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sound, it can be sent directly out as a digital signal, and voice
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communication can then be digitized (converted into digital information) and
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sent over the very same lines. The result is higher quality, fewer errors and
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a faster data transfer rate than we have with our current phone system.
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Apple Canada recently had ISDN service installed and is dreaming up
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numerous applications for this new technology.
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"Since everything is digital, data compression systems can be used to make
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new things possible," says Andrew Scoular, networking product manager at Apple
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Canada. "ISDN will make the home office more useful and practical. Imagine
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calling up a co-worker and opening up a window containing a live video image
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of that person on the screen of your Mac. Then you can link both of your
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computers together, allowing both of you to see the rest of the windows on
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your screen".
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"Anything you're doing in your word processor, database or anything else
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can be easily conveyed to the other person. If you have any hard copy to
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present, you can just hold it up to the camera and maybe open another window
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so you can see yourself and make sure the other person can see clearly."
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ISDN will have a major impact on virtual reality, says Scoular.
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"The virtual reality applications will be amazing. Imagine being linked to
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a series of cameras in a London art gallery and being able to browse through
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the pieces of art and being able to talk with other people there and make bids,
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all from your desk."
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According to Scoular, Apple was a natural choice to work on the
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technology.
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"Apple was chosen to be part of the testing because Bell wanted a
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non-phone company to work with them. And the Mac is an ideal platform for ISDN
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developments because of its graphical environment. More and more graphical
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information is being integrated with computer technology.
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ISDN is beginning to be installed in places like Apple Canada but it won't
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be until 1993 that most consumers will be able to take advantage of the
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technology in their homes and businesses.
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With ISDN there will be no modems. Instead we'll all have ISDN interface
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cards which go inside your computer and hook up to your ISDN wall jack. The
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ISDN card will have a telephone jack, allowing any regular telephone to be
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plugged into the system.
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If you're talking to a modem user who's still on the older system you'll
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be able to emulate, say, a V.32 or an HST completely through software. You'll
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be limited to the baud rate of the modem at the other end, just as you are now
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when you call someone who has a slower modem.
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Since everything is purely digital there's very little chance of line
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noise, especially since more and more fibreoptic cables are being used. For
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modem users, less time will be spent transferring files and faxes and more
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time will be spent on productive activities. Businesses and home office
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workers will benefit with ISDN because they'll have a faster and more powerful
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link to other computers and services.
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"With more people working on home offices, companies can reduce costs by
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renting smaller offices," says Scoular. "Instead of having dozens of desks
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they could set up only a handful of general-purpose workstations for people
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who need to come into the office on occasion."
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The services comes in two forms - Basic Rate Access (BRA) and Primary Rate
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Access (PRA). BRA will contain two 64-Kilobit per second lines (That's 64,000
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bps) and one 16k bps line. The 64k bps lines can be used for voice or data
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communications, and the two lines can be combined, creating a speed of 128k
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bps. The 16k bps lines is used as a control line, allowing in-house phone line
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switching as well as a lower-speed data line.
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PRA contains 23k to 64k bps lines and one 16k bps line and is designed for
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larger business installations. The lines could be combined for a total speed
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of 1.48 million bps. (That's 23 times 64, plus 16.)
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For BBSers ISDN means we'll have the ability to play real on-line video
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games instead of simple ANSI or text-oriented games. We'll exceed our current
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modem speeds by a factor of five or maybe higher with new data compression
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systems. Electronic and voice mail will evolve into video mail.
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As well, virtual reality will become a consumer commodity, bulletin boards
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and similar services will be as popular as cable TV and no one will want to
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buy my slightly used 300-baud acoustic modem.
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File Typed By:
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%% Silent Death / Temple of Terror %%
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While I'm at it.. Let me just state one thing:
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Temple of Terror will be going back up very shortly. The number HAS BEEN
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CHANGED. Please do not call the old number of the board. The new number will
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be given out shortly. It is just that the guy who is going to run the board
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has to get his 80mb hard drive still. He is only running on an 40mb MFM drive
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now I believe and I told him that when he gets the hard drive (sometime this
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week I believe), I will then let him run the board. Actually, the board might
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go up after the March Break since I will be gone for the week.. Haha.. I'm
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going to be nice and warm while you people can bask in the cold of TO..
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Anyway, you will get a notice of when it's going up..
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%% Silent Death / Temple of Terror %%
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Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253
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