Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 09:37:16 +0100 (MET) From: Luigi Rizzo <luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it> To: multimedia@freebsd.org Subject: command-line vat/like program Message-ID: <199711260837.JAA06650@labinfo.iet.unipi.it>
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Hi,
this message is to ask for suggestions etc.
There is some work in progress to build a vat/rat-like program with
a simple command line interface, for those who don't want to fire
X and Tk/Tcl to do simple internet telephony.
In my view, this program should not do everything vat/rat does, but
has two main applications:
- be usable for "broadcast" applications e.g. where one wants to
send (or receive) audio from a box without having to fire vat;
taking this to the extreme, one could even think of putting the
program in MFS on a bootable floppy (maybe with ppp...)
to do simple internet telephony...
- be as easy to use as a telephone, especially for point-to-point
communications, so that one can possibly use it even without a
screen, just a keyboard and the audio device (i.e. feedback comes
through the headset, as in a telephone.)
I and others already have some working code, which already
interoperates with vat, and turns out to be quite small:
prova# ls -l tel.tgz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 luigi wheel 5156 Nov 25 18:13 tel.tgz
prova# size tel
text data bss dec hex
12288 4096 63776 80160 13920
I am calling for suggestions on two things:
* what would you like the program to do ?
remember that the program should remain small, so I am not too
keen on including all the fancy stuff that vat does; e.g. RTCP
support will be minimal, mixing different sources might not be
implemented, etc.
Among things I have in mind:
- telephone-like commands, e.g.
d dial
h hangup
r record
p play a file
- select source between mic, line and some audio file
(so one can play previous recordings);
- record conversations;
- look names in a database so I can simply type
d luigi
to connect to luigi's "tel"phone (ip address/port are in a database)
- what should be its name ?
I have used the name "tel" for the first prototipe, which suggests
the functionality (telephone) and is short to type. Surprisingly no
app that I know is using this name, and hopefully nobody will be
able to register the "tel" trademark and then sue us for improper
usage of the name (see the recent issue on games...)
There are of course alternatives, one could be
aat (ascii audioconferencing tool)
and in general i would go for a short and simple-to-type name.
Feedback appreciated, and if someone has already some code like this,
or wants to help in this effort, I'll be glad to cooperate.
[P.S. sources for the current version of "tel" should be available in a
couple of days once I have debugged GSM operation and possibly added
LPC support]
Cheers
Luigi
-----------------------------+--------------------------------------
Luigi Rizzo | Dip. di Ingegneria dell'Informazione
email: luigi@iet.unipi.it | Universita' di Pisa
tel: +39-50-568533 | via Diotisalvi 2, 56126 PISA (Italy)
fax: +39-50-568522 | http://www.iet.unipi.it/~luigi/
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