Author Topic: Found some stuff in my work's basement... Check it out!  (Read 3363 times)

Offline computerwiz_222

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Found some stuff in my work's basement... Check it out!
« on: July 12, 2006, 05:43:09 AM »
Hello, I work at an electronic components store. We sell everything from resistors to potentiometers to video correctors to ICs. I was cleaning the store, bringing old stuff into the basement and stuff. So I bring down a big ole box of ICs. We usually only stock 10 or 15 on the shelf in a zip-loc bag then the rest go into overstock. So while I am in the basement (a huge mess of broken electronics, obselete ICs, cable and lots of other treasure) I decide to poke around a little. I find a few things of interest... couple of 28.8 Kbps modems. When I found these I was like wow they need to clean this place up a litttle, some parallel port things with lots of little dip switches on it, and these two things. I didn't take the parallel port and modems (too old and boring, My own mediocre attempt at humor has been highly amusing to myself.). I found this thing called a call guard. Here is a pic of it... The whole pic isn't visible unless you scroll over.





It looks like you plug the cord into the phone jack then the phone into the box. Then you need a key to be able to make calls. Pretty useless because you can just unplug the box from the wall and then plug the phone directly into the wall. But they stop you from doing that by using this little black thing on the cord that stops the plastic tab from moving. Do any of you know it when it is off if it blocks outgoing calls only or both. I would imagine only out going. That was cool, but that got boring quickly so I moved on in my "treasure hunt" and I found this strange circuit board with phone connectors on it.









It has a phone cord attatched, a switch, a regular sized phone jack on one end and a handset sized phone jack on the other end. It also has a DC jack. What is  this thing, is it an inline recorder of some sort. Does anyone know what the switch is for... I haven't plugged it in, I don't know what is going to happen. I have three of these but I can get 20 more... What are they?

Just thought I would share my finds with you guys.

Offline silentneep

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Re: Found some stuff in my work's basement... Check it out!
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2006, 07:00:13 AM »
If I had to guess, I'd say that last thing is a PBX data gateway.
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Offline computerwiz_222

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Re: Found some stuff in my work's basement... Check it out!
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2006, 10:59:43 AM »
What is a PBX data gateway. Is it to allow the dial-up modems through a PBX?

Offline silentneep

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Re: Found some stuff in my work's basement... Check it out!
« Reply #3 on: July 13, 2006, 05:53:21 AM »
To be honest, I have no fucking clue.  I really don't know very much about PBX hardware at all.  I just happened to see this, and decided to take the opportunity to be a smartass.




EDIT: OK, a short bout of research suggests that a PBX data gateway is what you would use to send/recieve data (ie, what you would hook your modem to) on a PBX system. 
« Last Edit: July 13, 2006, 06:02:15 AM by silentneep »
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Offline Colonel Panic

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Re: Found some stuff in my work's basement... Check it out!
« Reply #4 on: July 13, 2006, 12:52:44 PM »
Wow. Turns out it's about as useless as the parallel port card and the 28.8 kbps modem.

It looks cool. though!

Offline computerwiz_222

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Re: Found some stuff in my work's basement... Check it out!
« Reply #5 on: July 14, 2006, 04:00:09 AM »
My own mediocre attempt at humor has been highly amusing to myself., maybe if i inspected the PCB a little more...  :P It's weird though because there is a plug for a handset and a switch... Oh well, I'll do some googling.

Offline computerwiz_222

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Re: Found some stuff in my work's basement... Check it out!
« Reply #6 on: July 14, 2006, 06:57:01 AM »
I may have figured out what it does. The cord attatched has a handset sized plug. I think that you plug that into the handset on a phone. You plug the handset into the port that it fits into on the "PBX data gateway" and you can hook up a fax or modem. I think the switch controls what is being used the handset or the data... Any ideas?