readme

multi-line Adjunct Communication Server

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The ACS project is being maintained until the new Bayonne project (hosted
on Source Forge, http://sourceforge.net/project/?group_id=3630) is
operational.  The 0.5.5 release is meant to update ACS to build with the
newly merged APE/Common C++ project libraries.

Recent Changes

ACS 0.5.4 has been compiled against a fully modern (Mandrake 7.0) Pentium
optimized GNU/Linux distribution.  A number of minor changes were made to
support proper compiling under gcc 2.95 and the use of APE 1.2.

With 0.5.3, we hope this will be the last "development" release of ACS.  The
next set of releases will be numbered starting from 0.9, and will put the
project on target for a 1.0 release fairly soon.

Some significent changes were made for 0.5.3.  This most important of these
was to switch all further ACS development to the most current Linux kernels
and releases.  The Voicetronix VPB 1.6.2 driver supports a 2.2.12 or newer
kernel, and the new Quicknet support is built from 2.2.14.

Of course, with this final development set, we have incorperated Quicknet
driver support.  There are still some rough edges on the Quicknet DTMF
detection within their current driver, however, the purpose was to provide a
platform that can fully support any future vendors use of a "/dev/phone"
based driver under ACS.

Quicknet and /dev/driver support fully supports multi-port and/or multi-card
devices.  Hence, you can load up a PC with multiple Quicknet LineJack cards
and use ACS as a multi-line telephony server.  I believe a maximum of 16
Quicknet cards can theoritically co-exist.

Finally, a lot has been done to "standardize" Perl as a TGI platform under
ACS.  There is now an example Perl TGI module to assist in further 
developing Perl TGI apps.  In the future, we will be distributing a number
of "standardized" perl scripts for use with ACS, starting with
"sendmail.pl".

Release 0.5.2 of ACS now includes support for the sampled vocabulary
TTS system.  The vocab file loader is complete, and more of the
functionality for the new "say" command has been coded.  You can now
download and use the new vocab-0.1.tar.gz or RPM's with ACS.  Because
of their immense size, sampled vocabulary files are distributed seperately
from ACS proper.

With release 0.5.1., we have stopped the practive of redistributing APE
(and SMDI) sources with ACS proper.  Both are available seperately and
APE in particular is very stable and unlikely to change in any interface
required by ACS.  APE development has been on a seperate track from ACS
for a considerable period of time and this change more correctly reflects
the fact that ACS depends on, rather than includes, APE.  The default
prefix, /usr/local, rather than /opt/ACS, is now used for installation
to match APE default.

Release 0.5.0 makes use of the ability to dynamically load modules to
implement a database interfaces into the IVR, and to complete voice
messaging support.  Modules can be used to directly extend the script
interpreter for custom features.  A crude TTS capability has also been
started for ACS under the new "say" command.   0.5.0 is largely an
architectural release which will be expanded upon in coming weeks with
the introduction of actual modules and rtp support.

With release 0.4.4, the core scripting language should now be largely
complete.  A 0.4.5+ bug fix or minor extension release may yet occur
next week.  However, work has already begun on 0.5, which will offer a 
reorganized class arrangement and some very stunning new capabilities...

Version 0.4.0 introduces support for the Voicetronix VPB4 series of
4 port analog DSP telephony cards, alongside support for Pika hardware.
The Voicetronix driver is GPL licensed and enables the construction of
a fully free (GPL licensed) telephony server under GNU/Linux.

Version 0.3.2 represents a final cleanup release of the 0.3 series.
Starting next week, we will introduce ACS 0.4.0 with support for additional
hardware platforms starting with the VoiceTronix VPB4 telephony card and
their GPL licensed driver, finally offering a fully free end to end
telephony solution under ACS with GNU/Linux.

Version 0.3 of ACS offers a new stable base release prepared under the
most current APE library.  ACS has been prepared for introduction of
alternate hardware platforms in addition to operating with the
released Pika MonteCarlo drivers and API for GNU/Linux.

Description

ACS, also known as the GPL licensed "Adjunct Communication Server" is a
public project started initially under GNU/Linux and initially using Pika
hardware and the Pika Monte Carlo API to develop the core class
extensible threaded C++ state engine and IVR component of a complete and
commercial quality multi-line communications server.  Combined with
appropriate utilities, ACS can provide extensible IVR and messaging
functionality.  Many other elements include existing services that the
ACS and related utilities can interact with.  These will include Apache
for web content, sendmail/ipop/etc for e-mail content delivery, openldap
for directory services, and embrola for TTS.  Other projects, which are
being folded into ACS, include the Voxilla SMDI project, along with
notifyd.  Other projects, such as APE will be used to provide needed
architectural elements for implementing ACS.  ACS can eventually be
deployed in commercial settings as the primary resource for fax, IVR,
voice mail, and unified messaging.

Platforms Supported

While ACS is being primarily developed under GNU/Linux, many of the ideas
can be used in other telephony projects and on other platforms.

Current ACS releases work with both the Pika Monte Carlo API and VoiceTronix
telephony hardware.

Compiling ACS

Untar ACS into a local directory.  The usual way to make ACS is to
run 'configure' which runs the 'config' script to select the platform
you wish to build ACS for.  You can re-run the ACS config by using
"make config" if you wish to build for different hardware.

Debugging ACS

Threading is a natural property of the MonteCarlo environment, so one has
it whether one likes it or not.  Inheritance, encapsulation, and speed
will all benefit from a threaded C++ application.  To report bugs, please
send email to [e-mail].

About Pika

ACS is free software licensed under the terms of the GPL.  Permission is
hereby granted to use this software with the Pika Monte Carlo API under
GNU/Linux.