Re: Simple Dialing Program

[EdwardATeller <sorry_no_email@xxxxxxxxx>]

On May 15, 3:03 pm, Bob Fish <rf...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> EdwardATeller wrote:
> > On May 15, 1:35 pm, Bob Fish <rf...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> EdwardATeller wrote:
> >>> I have a Windows XP laptop with SP2 on it.  It has a pretty standard
> >>> modem built into it.  I'd like to write a batch program that picks up
> >>> the line, dials a series of numbers, #'s. and *'s, waits a while, and
> >>> then hangs up.  Can someone help or point me in the right direction?
> >>> Thanks.
> >> google "war dialer"
>
> > Thanks, but I'd prefer to write it myself.  Found a list of Hayes-
> > compatible commands,
> > and now I'm stuck on exactly how to put them in a batch file so that
> > the modem knows I'm
> > speaking to it.
>
> > BTW, the application is to turn on and turn off Vonage's Do Not
> > Disturb feature.
> > It would be nice if Vonage let me a schedule on my user control panel,
> > but they don't, so I
> > am just going to have a spare laptop power up from standby mode, dial
> > the numbers, and
> > then go back to sleep.
>
> Ah, that's a lot easier.
>
> Put what you want to send out the serial port (*** or ###) into a text
> file like on.txt and off.txt
>
> Then you can send the contents of the txt file to the serial port that
> is handling the modem by simply using the copy command from a bat file
>
> copy on.txt com1
>
> replace com1 with the serial port number the modem is attached to (eg
> com2 com3 com4)

Thanks for the helpful replies.  I'll try them when I have some time,
but I ended doing this:

I used Hyperterminal (HT) to do the dialing, creating one HT file for
*78,,,1 on and one for *79,,,1.
Then I setup an AutoHotKey script to invoke the HT file and press
Enter twice.  Then I used Task
Manager to run "turn off DND" in the morning and "turn on DND" in the
evening.  TM wakes the laptop
from standby to run.   I use Slawdog's AutoShutDown to power the cycle
the computer
once a day to keep things fresh, plus send it into standby after a few
minutes of inactivity.

It's a low power laptop that I never use, but it's handy for things
like this, and I doubt this setup
uses much electricity at all.

Another day, another fun project up and running.