Macintosh AV Systems: Multiple GeoPort Applications

Why can't two DSP (Digital Signal Processor) GeoPort applications run concurrently on a Macintosh AV system? If I run, for example, both ApplePhone and the fax software set up to receive faxes, I expect them to work like ARA when it is set to answer calls. ARA will relinquish serial port rights to another application and then reclaim the serial port when the other application releases it.

Is this a function of how those two applications were written, or is a limitation of the ARA software?

Notes: ApplePhone 1.0 and 1.0.1 is an example program that Apple does not support. The Macintosh AV team created the program to show the capabilities of the AV technology. Apple does not intend to do any further work to this example program and it has been removed from Apple Software Updates. This ApplePhone software is NOT related in any way to the Apple Phone software that is a part of the Apple Telecom 3.x package. Apple Telecom 3.x also includes Apple Address Book and Apple Fax software.

The issue: using the GeoPort telecomm adapter, you can run only one telecomm application at a time. Remember that the Express Modem software counts as one application, so you can have multiple applications that use that software running at the same time.

ApplePhone, which is not modem-based, doesn't use the Express Modem software, so you have an either/or situation with it. On the other hand, you could have multiple well-behaved commtoolbox application running at the same time.

You can also have (in some cases, depending on bandwidth use and processor capabilities) multiple DSP applications up and running. Remember that speech recognition takes a LOT of bandwidth and that it is difficult to get other DSP applications running concurrently with it.