Use the computer as telephone?

[elander]

I have several Mac computers, and they all have built in modems. There used to be a software application called MegaPhone for previous versions of Mac OS, that enabled me to use a modem and my computer as a regular telephone.

Does anyone know of similar software for OS X? Or where I can get my hands on MegaPhone today (the manufacturers web site isn't helpful)?

The reason why I want such an application is that I want to record some of my calls and I don't want to use external equipment to do so. I know that there are several applications for Windows, e.g. AudioRecorder, that will do this, but I don't do Windows.

 

[boi]

audiohijack will do the recording for you. if you figure out anything that does the phone stuff for you (namely with caller ID and stuff ^_^) let me know!

 

[shrill]

Here's the short answer: go out and invest in an answering machine that can record your phone calls. It's probably cheaper, and certainly faster than any of my suggestions below. Plus, if you really want messages in your mac, you can hold your mic up to the answering machine as you play back your calls


Old Mac Answer:
Whether you can do it or not really depends on the kind of computer you have. There is old Mac software that might do it; if you can find an old mac voice modem with old mac voice software in it, you might have a chance.

Modern Mac Answer:
If you really want this to work, you do some hacking of a BSD / Linux voice modem program, recompile and possibly rewrite it to work on OS X. Then get a PC voice modem or an old Mac voice modem, and rig some kind of real serial connection (like an iPort) so you can plug it in. USB > Serial adapters won't work for this kind of thing. Beige G3's built in serial ports also work fine if you have one of those.

Your UNIX program is called vgetty, which I think comes with mgetty+sendfax or hylafax. Actually, it's probably it's own package. There are probably others out there too, but that's the only one that I know of that may work.


I am fairly positive that the modems that apple is shipping these days do not have the voice chip. Even if you had the software, you would still need a modem that could do it.

I know that USR (now 3com, right?) made a Macintosh external voice modem, and so did Supra (now Sonic|Blue). I bet you could find a nice Sportster 33.6 voice or a SupraExpress 33.6 voice in a junk bin at a computer shop somewhere for $5.