Computer based information system for character display phone network

• US 4,776,005 A
• Filed: 07/23/1987
• Issued: 10/04/1988
• Est. Priority Date: 07/23/1987
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Affiliated Telephone, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Affiliated Telephone, Inc.
• Inventors: Seltzer, Daniel A., Shandley, Shelly A., Petriccione, George A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ng, Jin F.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chan, Wing Fu
• Application Number:
  US07/076,946
• Time in Patent Office: 439 Days
• Field of Search: 379/142, 379/140, 379/112, 379/113, 379/130, 379/131, 379/133, 379/210, 379/214, 379/213, 379/94, 379/96
• US Class Current: 379/142.01
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/575 Means for retrieving and displaying personal data about calling party
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/65 Recording arrangements for recording a message from the calling party in the exchange H04M3/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42314 in private branch exchanges
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/546 in private branch exchanges

Abstract

An interface circuit for a telephone instrument forming part of a character display phone PBX system. The circuit is connected to receive data signals indicative of the condition of the character display and keyboard portions of the instrument, and to store and manage the incoming data and produce a serial RS232 output for communication of the data to a computer or terminal device. The interface enables the use of a computing device to store large amounts of information related to potential calling parties and called parties which may be identified in the display of the telephone instrument and also to associate such information with messages entered into the computer via the keyboard. The overall system thus enables custom answering of a multiplicity of lines of such a character display phone system and use of a single multi-line phone as a messaging center.

Claims

1. A system for providing enhanced telephone answering and information handling comprising:

a PBX telephone system of the type including a plurality of incoming trunk lines and a plurality of PBX stations, each of said stations including a telephone instrument having an optical character display therein and means for transmitting call information signals indicative of a plurality of items of data from the switches of said PBX system to said character display telephone to generate a character display indicative of information about the call being sent to the telephone by the equipment;

at least one character display phone telephone instrument connected as a station of said PBX said instrument including keys for selecting one of a plurality of lines for connection to said instrument;

first means connected to said telephone instrument for receiving signals representative of the call information displayed by the character display on said instrument;

second means connected to said telephone instrument for receiving signals produced by actuation of each key of said telephone instrument;

control means connected to said first and second signal receiving means for storing data representative of said signals and producing a serial data output stream indicative of a line number to which said instrument is connected and the call information associated with the call on that line;

a computer having an input port connected to receive the output data stream from said control means for storing the information of said data in a memory, said computer having means for storing in memory identification information associated with each item of data contained within said call information and means responsive to receipt of said serial data stream for recalling from said memory said identification and displaying said information for an operation answering said telephone instrument.

2. A system as set forth in claim 1 wherein said control means includes:

means for storing in memory, character data indicative of call information associated with individual ones of the lines accessible through said station;

means for storing in memory the number of the line to which said instrument is connected;

means for storing in memory an indication of a hold condition for any one individual line to which said memory is accessible; and

means for assembling data from both the line number memory and the character memory in a serial format for output to the input port of said computer.

3. A system as set forth in claim 2 wherein said means for formatting said data is connected to the input port of said computer by means of an opto-isolator to electrically isolate the interconnection of the telephone equipment from the computer equipment.

4. A system as set forth in claim 3 wherein power for output photo transistor of said opto-isolator is taken from the computer equipment.

5. A system as set forth in claim 4 wherein both positive and negative power are taken from the computer equipment.

6. An interface for a messaging station comprising a character display telephone connected as a station of a PBX system capable of transmitting to and displaying at said telephone optical characters indicative of, for each call, the calling party and the called party, said telephone being capable of key accessing a plurality of different lines within said PBX, placing each of said lines on hold by actuating a hold key, and releasing said lines from hold by actuating a release key, said circuit comprising:

a central processing unit;

a plurality of input buffers for connection to display data signal connections within said telephone to couple the character information contained in the display to said CPU;

a plurality of input buffers connected to the keys of said telephone to couple to said CPU data signals indicative of actuation of any one of a plurality of line keys, the hold key or the release key of said telephone;

a plurality of character memory locations, one location being associated with the storage of calling party and called party character information for each of the lines accessible by said telephone;

a line number memory location for storage of data indicative of the line number currently connected to said telephone;

a line on hold flag memory, having a plurality of storage locations, one location for each of the lines to which said telephone is connectable, for storing an indication as to whether or not the line is on hold or not on hold;

means responsive to the detection of data from the display of said telephone and to data from the buffers connected to the keys of said telephone for storing said display data in the character memory location associated with line to which said telephone is connected and for assembling the data in a serial format representing line number, calling party and called party;

means for transmitting said serially formatted data from said interface circuit for communication with a computer or terminal device.

7. A circuit as set forth in claim 6 wherein said means responsive to said character and keyboard buffer information is also responsive to hold flag being set in said line on hold flag memory for comparing the data stored the character memory associated with a line with the current character data coming from said display buffers;

means responsive to a direct comparison between said respective compared data signals for recalling the stored character data from memory, assembling said data in a serial format and transmitting it;

means responsive to the lack of comparison between said data for substituting in said line character memory said new data, formatting said new data in serial format and transmitting it to an RS232 interface.

8. A system as set forth in claim 7 wherein said means transmitting serial data includes an opto-isolator.

9. A method for facilitating the handling of call information at a messaging station comprising a multi-line display phone connected to a character display phone PBX capable of transmitting call identifying information to said station including calling party, and called party, said method comprising:

extracting character information indicative of the characters in the display of said display phone;

extracting keyboard information from said display phone indicative of the actuation of any one of a plurality of the line keys, hold key or release key;

storing data indicative of the character information in said display in a memory;

storing the line number to which the phone is connected in a memory;

assembling the stored character data and line number data in serial format;

transmitting said assembled data in an RS232 format output for communication with a computer or terminal device to enable said computer to recall from its memory data indicative of said call information and displaying for an answering operator of said display phone indicative of each call it comes into said phone and enabling custom answering of a plurality of separate lines.

10. A method for facilitating the handling of call information at a messaging station as set forth in claim 9 wherein said transmitting step includes providing an opto-isolator circuit between data assembly equipment and said terminal device.

11. A method for facilitating the handling of call information at a messaging station as set forth in claim 10 which also includes the step of obtaining electrical power for operation of circuitry within said opto-isolator circuitry from said terminal device.