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Show HN: Rotary Phone Dial Linux Kernel Driver

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Re: Show HN: Rotary Phone Dial Linux Kernel Driver

#21

Post by Daviey »

reaperducer wrote: post #20
Daviey wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Connect it to a an FXS/ATA and make it a voip phone? I have, agmonst others, a candlestick phone from the 1920's still functional using this.

Connect it to a an FXS/ATA and make it a voip phone? I thought about it, but couldn't find a VOIP service that was the right combination of ease/cost/good hardware.

What's your criteria for the 3?

For hardware, any of these should be sufficient (as they support pulse dialing):

  - Minitar MVA11A
  - Grandstream HT502 & GXW-4008
  - Primus Lingo iAN-02EX
  - Innomedia MTA6328-2Re
  - Motorola VT-1005
  - Audio Codes MP-114 FXO
  - Digium IAXy s101i
  - Linksys RTP300  (Before firmware version 3 I believe)
(Source: https://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=20...)

For ease and cost, you can get connectivity for almost free (depending on the country) - should just need to add the SIP/IAX login details, so what is your criteria?

Re: Show HN: Rotary Phone Dial Linux Kernel Driver

#22

Post by sephalon »

jeroenhd wrote: post #2

Very nice! I love these minimal driver implementations. It shows off how little actual code you need for a driver (but also how many flags and kernel methods you need to know exist to make a basic driver work). >Initially, I intended to reimplement the driver in Rust to explore the state of the Rust for Linux project. Unfortunately, I soon realized that the necessary bindings simply are not available yet, so that par…

Unfortunately only a handful of subystem APIs have Rust bindings right now, so I did not get far enough to write up anything meaningful. Maybe next year support has matured to make a reimplementation in Rust feasible; then I will happily write about my experiences :-)

Re: Show HN: Rotary Phone Dial Linux Kernel Driver

#23

Post by jtwaleson »

Shameless plug for those who like rotary phones: I converted mine into a fully functional bluetooth headset, including dialing phone numbers with the rotary dial. The HN post didn't do well but it got featured on hackaday.

https://hackaday.com/2024/10/31/bakelite-to-the-future-a-195...

https://blog.waleson.com/2024/10/bakelite-to-future-1950s-ro...

Creating an alt mode for a bluetooth rotary numpad shouldn't be difficult ;) Now if I could only find some time.

Re: Show HN: Rotary Phone Dial Linux Kernel Driver

#24

Post by sephalon »

jtwaleson wrote: post #23

Shameless plug for those who like rotary phones: I converted mine into a fully functional bluetooth headset, including dialing phone numbers with the rotary dial. The HN post didn't do well but it got featured on hackaday. https://hackaday.com/2024/10/31/bakelite-to-the-future-a-195... https://blog.waleson.com/2024/10/bakelite-to-future-1950s-ro... Creating an alt mode for a bluetooth rotary numpad shouldn't be diffi…

Nice one! Using an ESP32 is a much more economical choice these days, but well, I really wanted to write a Linux kernel driver ;-)

Re: Show HN: Rotary Phone Dial Linux Kernel Driver

#25

Post by reaperducer »

Daviey wrote: post #21
reaperducer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Connect it to a an FXS/ATA and make it a voip phone? I thought about it, but couldn't find a VOIP service that was the right combination of ease/cost/good hardware.

What's your criteria for the 3? For hardware, any of these should be sufficient (as they support pulse dialing): - Minitar MVA11A - Grandstream HT502 & GXW-4008 - Primus Lingo iAN-02EX - Innomedia MTA6328-2Re - Motorola VT-1005 - Audio Codes MP-114 FXO - Digium IAXy s101i - Linksys RTP300 (Before firmware version 3 I believe) (Source: https://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=20... ) For ease and cost…

It's been at least four years since I looked, which U.S. services do you recommend?

I only use my phone for voice calls three or four times a year, so cheap is important. But my wife will use it, so reliability is important.

If I could get something for $10/month, that would be ideal.

The list you pulled from that forum is seven years old, and only one of the five boxes I tried to find is still available.

Re: Show HN: Rotary Phone Dial Linux Kernel Driver

#26

Post by bishopsmother »

oneoffcomment wrote: post #15
Daviey wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Connect it to a an FXS/ATA and make it a voip phone? I have, agmonst others, a candlestick phone from the 1920's still functional using this.

It would be great to hack together a 1920's style AI operator to put the calls through for you.

Cisco SPA232D + Asterisk + Deepgram should work for this (per [0], that I'm currently testing/improving).

[0] https://blog.walledgarden.ai/2025-05-20/wabbit-s2-welcome-to...

Re: Show HN: Rotary Phone Dial Linux Kernel Driver

#27

Post by gaudystead »

spicybright wrote: post #14
mauvehaus wrote: post #8

When the iPhone was just a rumor, I suggested that making it with a touch wheel like the iPods of the time would be a great opportunity to bring back rotary dialing. This was soundly rejected by all present. Thanks to this, all I need to do is set up a Linux box so I can have that classic rotary vibe!

That would have been a hilarious timeline if they just upgraded ipods with cell networking, at least for one model. Then you can use this for typing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA

It's wild how that video came out 16 years ago and basically ends with "we'll see if Apple will make computers for business users and not just dicking around", and now in the current day, I'm working at a place where an update was sent out to our Macbook users that bricked the ones running an M1 chip, but not the M2 or M3 models.

It almost feels _impressive_ how hard macOS still is to integrate into an enterprise setting, and maybe they're okay with it just being a running joke for the past two decades that their computers don't do as well in a business context...

Re: Show HN: Rotary Phone Dial Linux Kernel Driver

#28

Post by jtwaleson »

sephalon wrote: post #24
jtwaleson wrote: post #23

Shameless plug for those who like rotary phones: I converted mine into a fully functional bluetooth headset, including dialing phone numbers with the rotary dial. The HN post didn't do well but it got featured on hackaday. https://hackaday.com/2024/10/31/bakelite-to-the-future-a-195... https://blog.waleson.com/2024/10/bakelite-to-future-1950s-ro... Creating an alt mode for a bluetooth rotary numpad shouldn't be diffi…

Nice one! Using an ESP32 is a much more economical choice these days, but well, I really wanted to write a Linux kernel driver ;-)

Understandable ;) In any case,the hardware is a fraction of the costs if you count the hours...

Would be interested to see a bit of your hardware setup!

Re: Show HN: Rotary Phone Dial Linux Kernel Driver

#29

Post by jasonjayr »

reaperducer wrote: post #25
Daviey wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your criteria for the 3? For hardware, any of these should be sufficient (as they support pulse dialing): - Minitar MVA11A - Grandstream HT502 & GXW-4008 - Primus Lingo iAN-02EX - Innomedia MTA6328-2Re - Motorola VT-1005 - Audio Codes MP-114 FXO - Digium IAXy s101i - Linksys RTP300 (Before firmware version 3 I believe) (Source: https://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=20... ) For ease and cost…

It's been at least four years since I looked, which U.S. services do you recommend? I only use my phone for voice calls three or four times a year, so cheap is important. But my wife will use it, so reliability is important. If I could get something for $10/month, that would be ideal. The list you pulled from that forum is seven years old, and only one of the five boxes I tried to find is still available.

https://voip.ms is running my "land line" to the house, really just camping on a number we've had for years and is used in a bunch of important accounts, and to give out as a number to companies or people I do not want ringing my cell phone.

I think I pay USD $20 every 4-5 months to top it off. (about 3-5 inbound calls a day, and maybe 1-2 outbound calls every week or so) ATA adapters are relatively cheap to come by, which should be able to configured directly to voip.ms. I run a full FreePBX in my homelab for my connection: my ATA connects to that instead, and is connected to a cheap analog cordless phone.

Re: Show HN: Rotary Phone Dial Linux Kernel Driver

#30

Post by jtwaleson »

anonymousiam wrote: post #10

Back in the late 70's, I made a rotary phone dialer for my HP41C calculator. I connected a NC reed relay to the piezoelectric beeper and put the NC contacts in-line with my telephone line. I used "synthetic programming" (undocumented opcodes) to get the short duration beeps needed for the dialing pulses. I could enter a name (alphanumeric!) and it would look up and dial the phone number. About 10 years ago, I met a g…

Cool story :) out of curiosity, do you program those kind of things on the calculator itself? I did that with the hp49g and was proud of the programs I was able to write in such a constrained environment, but the single line display of the 41c would be a real achievement!
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