HyperCard: Dial Sounds Different with System 6.0.5


I have a new Macintosh LC, and a HyperCard note stack I've used for
the past six months, which includes phone dialing routines. The dialer,
which I've used by holding my handset to the speaker of a Macintosh IIx, no
longer works. Tones are generated, but regardless of the distance between
the Macintosh speaker and phone mouthpiece, they don't trigger the phone
system. I've done some audio comparison tests, and it sounds as if the
LC's tone generator is inaccurate, perhaps as much as a quarter-tone high.

As a result of changes in the Macintosh OS, support for DTMF tones is no
longer available. HyperCard 2.0 uses digitized sounds with the Dial
command. HyperCard 1.2.x will have difficulty producing the exact tones
required to trigger the telephone system. Upgrading to HyperCard 2.0
should solve the problem.

You may want to consider the following:

* Try dialing with pauses between the tones. Commas in the string cause a
one-second delay.

* A direct connection to the Macintosh results in higher fidelity and
may trigger the phone system. The Macintosh sound circuitry is capable
of producing much higher-quality sound than the speaker can pass.
HyperDialer connects directly to the sound port and eliminates both our
speaker and the telephone microphone.


Published Date: Feb 18, 2012