Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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A METHOD FOR COLLECTING CALLING NUMBER IDENTIFICATION
DATA (CNID) INTO A PERSONAL COMPUTER WITHOUT THE
NECESSITY OF MAINTAINING THE PC IN A POWERED STATE
CROSS-REFERENCE TO REL~TED APPLICATIO~S
The present application is related to the following
co-pending U.S. patent application beiny assigned to the
same assignee, entitled:
"AN APPARATUS TO COLLECT CALLING NUMBER IDENTIFICA-
TION DATA (CNID) INTO A PERSONAL COMPUTER WITHOUT THE
NECESSIT~ OF MAINTAINING THE PC IN A POWERED STATE",
"(Attorney Docket No. 92-1-304)".
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a PC accessory card
and to customer premises telephone call management
product. More particularly, to the instructions executed
by an accessory card that receives Caller Identification
(CID) data for incoming calls and DTME data for outgoing
calls. The hard~Jare consists of an accessory card, which
includes a microprocessor and an external wall-plug power
supply. The accessory card attaches to a standard tele-
phone line with CID service via an RJ-11 type connector.
CID data is collected for further processing by the
accessory card.
BACKG~OUND OF THE INVENTION
CID data is sent from a telephone company central
office over a standard telephone line to the subscriber.
This data is sent as a burst of Bell 202 1200 baud
asynchronous data between the first and second occurrence
of ringing voltage. The most common CID device marketed
to subscribers is a free-standing LED or LCD display
unit. This unit provides a display of the data and
perhaps a limited storage of incoming call data. How-
ever, these units provide no means to export the data.
A CID device that attaches between the CID telephone
line and a PC's serial or parallel port is also currently
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available. This device demodulates the CID Bell 202 data
and sends it into the PC for further processing. How-
ever, this device does not collect and store information
while the PC is turned off. Incoming call data, i.e.
calling number and time of call, can be used in a number
of ways by the PC user.
Prior to the present invention, PC-based computer
CID data collection while the PC is powered down was not
supported. The user of a CID-to-PC interEace device was
required to leave the host PC constantly turned on to
have around the clock call data collection. However, it
is undesirable to leave a PC operating when unattended
due to energy consumption and wear and tear on electro-
mechanical parts such as hard disk drives, as well as,
insurance policies that may prohibit operation of major
office equipment when unattended. It follows, that there
was no means to upload that information to the PC when
the PC was powered up and display that information in a
graphical, user friendly manner.
Therefore it is the objective of the present inven-
tion to provide a method of collecting CNID data for in-
coming calls and DTMF data for outgoing calls and trans-
fer the data to a computer. The CNID method must collect
CNID data even when the computer to which the device is
attached, is turned off.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In order to accomplish the object of the present
invention there is provided a method for collecting
information from a telephone line and passing the col-
lected information to a computer when the computer is ina powered up state. The information is either present
between ringing signals or any dialing tones sent after
the telephone is taken off-hook. The method requires
that the ringing of the telephone or the off-hook of the
telephone be detected. After one of these is detected,
the information from the telephone line is demodulated.
Next, the state of the computer must be determined. If
the computer is powered down or the required software is
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not operational, the information retrieved from the
telephone line is stored. The computer is continually
checked for a powered up and operational conditional.
When the PC is operating, the information is then trans-
ferred to the computer.
A line interface detects ringing, an off-hook condi-
tion, and receives the information from the telephone
line. If the computer is turned off, the information is
temporarily stored in a local memory. A sequence of in-
structions is also stored in the memory. Connected tothe memory and the line interface means is a micro-
processor. Under direction of the sequence of instruc-
tions, the microprocessor receives the information from
the line interface and stores it in the memory if the
computer is in a powered down state. When the computer
is in a powered up state, the information is transferred
from the microprocessor to the computer through a com-
puter interface. If any information was stored in the
memory, the microprocessor retrieves that information
from the memory before sending it to the computer. Power
partitioning supplies independent power to the line
interface, the memory and the microprocessor, thereby
allowing them to operate while the computer is turned
off. The computer interface receives its power from the
computer.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
A better understanding of the invention may be had
from the consideration of the following detailed descrip-
tion taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings,
in which:
FIG. 1 is a system block diagram of the card's rela-
tionship to the host PC, external power supply, incoming
telephone line and extension telephones.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the major functions of
the card and the power partitioning that is employed
therein.
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FIG. 3 is a flow chart of the sequence of events
that occur when stored calling information col:Lected is
passed to the PC and displayed.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
The present invention is part of a hardware and
software package that comprises a complete single-line
call management system. The hardware consists of a PC
card that is designed for personal computers. As shown
in FIG. 1, the present invention uses a power and hard-
ware partitioning scheme. The general environment is a
personal computer with monitor, keyboard, and mouse 101,
the card 102, and standard telephone line with CNID
service 103. Extension telephones (not shown) are moni-
tored for outgoing call Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF)
(tone dialing) activity and on-hook/off-hook status. It
is important to emphasize that the power to most of the
internal card circuitry is not sourced from the PC's main
power supply, but rather from a plug-in power supply 105.
The plug-in power supply 105 is a low cost transformer-
rectifier-capacitor unregulated DC power supply.
The present invention differs from existing CNID
devices in that it provides a method for collecting
incoming and outgoing call data (Call Logging) even when
the PC is not turned on. This feature is called Sleeping
Call Collection (trademark of AG Communication Systems
Corporation). The unique means of powering the card with
external power also enables other card call management
software features to operate independently of whether the
PC is "on" at the moment.
Referring to EIG. 2, the interfaces to the card con-
sist of an external power pin jack 201, telephone line
RJ-11 connection 202, and the card edge connector 203.
Externally sourced power is locally regulated to 5V on
the card and a well defined power-on-reset signal is
generated to reset the card's own microprocessor at
initial power--up 204. DC isolation and lightning/power
cross protectlon are provided for the telephone line 205.
The portion o* the card's circuitry that deals with
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interfacing to the PC 206 receives 5V power (VCC-PC) ~rom
the PC and is not powered when the PC is off. For the
balance of the card's circuitry, a user option is pro-
vided with jumpers that can be configured to power the
card exclusively from the PC 207, receiving PC 5V power
for all circuitry and using the PC's power-on-reset 208.
This ~umper setting does not enable Sleeping Call
Collection.
The analog portion of the card 209 contains an FSK
demodulator to decode incoming CNID signals, an off/on
hook sensing circuit to determine telephone line status,
and a DTMF generator and decode;r. The digital portion of
the card 210 contains the microprocessor, ROM, and RAM.
Additional detail on the power scheme can be had by
referring to co-application: "AN APPARATUS TO COLLECT
CALLING NUMBER IDENTIFICATION DATA (CNID) INTO A PERSONAL
COMPUTER WITHOUT THE NECESSITY OF MAINTAINING THE PC IN A
POWERED STATE", "(Attorney Docket No. 92-1-304)".
Assuming that the power and reset jumpers are set
for Sleeping Call Collection, the card is installed in
the PC. The external wall-plug power supply is attached
to the card and plugged into an AC receptacle. Finally,
the CNID-equipped telephone line is attached to the
appropriate RJ-ll connector. The card is ready for the
initial installation of the software. With the PC booted
up and operating, the installation routine is executed
and some of the software is downloaded into RAM 210. Now
the card is ready to receive CNID data for incoming calls
as well as DTMF data for outgoing calls from the attached
telephone or any extension. While the card is powered
from the external wall-plug power supply, it executes its
internally stored program, thereby allowing the card to
continue to receive CNID and DTMF data collection of out-
going calls even when the PC is not powered.
When the PC is powered-up additional software is
executed by the PC. Once the PC starts executing this
software, any incoming call results in a "pop-up" window;
if CNID data is present, the pop-up window displays the
telephone number of the originating telephone. In the
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case when the Pc is not turned on, a Quiet Call counter
indicator is created. When the PC is s-ubsequently turned
on, the number of calls received is displayed. By open-
ing a window, the user can get details about calls re-
ceived during the powered down time.
Referring to Fig. 3, a flow chart showing the logi-
cal execution of the software executed by the accessory
card's microprocessor is shown. As an overview, the
accessory card's software continually checks to see if
its call information storage buffer contains any informa-
tion or if an incoming or outgoing call is beginning.
Once either of these is detected, the accessory card
determines if the PC is powered up and the appropriate
software is running. If the PC is operating, thèn the
call information is uploaded to it. If the PC is not
operating, the call information is stored in the acces-
sory card's buffer. The microprocessor then continually
checks for an incoming call, outgoing call~ or the PC
reaching its operating state.
If the PC and related software are switched on while
the accessory card based buffer contains information to
upload to the PC, then that information will immediately
begin to be passed from the accessory card's buffer to
the PC. The number of stored calls that have been
uploaded will be shown on the associated user interface
on the PC screen. The number of unanswered calls will be
shown in the Quiet Call Counter indicator in the user
interface. The Quiet Call Counter indicates to the user,
without pulling up the main associated user interface,
whether any incoming calls occurred which were not an-
swered since the the main associated user interface was
last invoked. This allows the user to simply glance at
the PC screen after an absence from the associated phone
to tell how many calls, if any, were received while he/
she was out.
With that overview and still referring to FIG. 3,
three possible loops are evident. The first loop, BOX
301 to BOX 301, is the idle state. This loop is executed
whenever there are no incoming or outgoing calls or call
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information stored in the buffer. If calling information
is received and the Pc is not operating, the second loop,
BOX 301, 302, 304 and 305, is executed. Once any calling
information is received and the PC was not operating, the
mieroproeessor eontinually executes BOX 301, 302, and 30
as its idle loop. If, however, the PC is on and the re-
lated PC based software is operational, an alternate loop
BOX 301, 302 and 303, is executed.
In summary, the present invention uses a powering
scheme and circuit partitioning to enable a PC card to
perform data colleetion and eal:l management funetions
independently of the on/off status of the host PC. A
microproeessor on the PC eard exeeutes a set of instrue-
tions allowing it to collect and store any call informa-
tion. The microprocessor transfers the information tothe PC once the mieroproeessor determines that the PC and
its software are operating.
Although the preferred embodiment of the invention
has been illustrated, and that form deseribed, it is
readily apparent to those skilled in the art that various
modifieations may be made therein without departing from
the spirit of the invention or from the scope of the
appended elaims.
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