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Millennium with Keyboard

Started by martin, December 29, 2016, 10:51:54 AM

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martin

Hello everyone!

I have dedicated quite some time (pretty much over 2 years - on and off - at this point) to Millennium payphones ever since I had a chance to play with one in Montreal. All this playing around with the Millennium phones went so far, as that I have currently one Deskset and two Multipay (wall-) units at home... Quite a nice collection ;-)

Now I won't bore you to death about how difficult it is to get demo-code-firmware for those phones and how difficult it was to a write my own fake Millennium-Manager-backend (let's just say, that it worked and that I am currently polishing up the code, so I can make the backend accessible to other Millennium-enthusiasts out there...

But I do need some help...

As you can see in the picture of my collection, I have one Bell-device with the TTY/QWERTY-keyboard. Unfortunately, I got that device without the EEPROMs. Missing the Voiceware-EEPROMs is not that bad - the phone will also work without it and I can always just plug in an English/Spanish-EEPROM instead of the original English/French one...

But the Firmware-EEPROM is where things get interesting: While 99% of the keyboard-related things are handled outside the phone (sending emails, sms, etc.), a special firmware that is able to communicate with the keyboard is required.

I have had a very brief contact with a guy from Montreal who managed to get a Keyboard-Millennium with Bell Aliant-branding on Kijiji or Craigslist - EEPROMs included (they were labeled "NNK1F05 / MTR1.13 KEYBRD"). Unfortunately, he is not replying to my messages anymore...

So I am desperately looking for someone, who has a Keyboard-Millennium with Firmware-EEPROMs inserted.

If you happen to be that person (or know someone who owns such a device): please let me know! I'll trade you a copy of your EEPROMs for priority access to the backend, once it goes into Beta-testing ;-)

Martin

unbeldi

Welcome!

Upfront... I don't have what you are looking for.

But I am curious of the technology and project.
I assume pin-compatible proms are still available in some format and that *you* are going to copy them?
No one has the images available ?

martin

Quote from: unbeldi on December 29, 2016, 11:22:05 AM
I assume pin-compatible proms are still available in some format and that *you* are going to copy them?

The EPROMs are standard-items - nothing out of the ordinary... Most firmware-ICs in the phones are M27C2001, most voiceware-ICs are M27C4001. If you cannot get those original ICs anymore, you can also replace them with a flash-based, pin-compatible IC like the SST39SF020A or the W27E040.

I would offer to copy them myself, if the person in question trusts me enough to ship them to me :)

Quote from: unbeldi on December 29, 2016, 11:22:05 AM
No one has the images available ?

Unfortunately, so far I haven't found anyone who has these images. Of course, Telcos like Bell Canada or Bell Aliant still have them - but they tend to be quite secretive and not divulging anything... (Which is - if you ask me - completely unnecessary, as even when you get your hands on the firmware for the phone, you cannot do anything with it... You still need a backend/Millennium Manager...)

unbeldi

Quote from: martin on December 29, 2016, 11:28:21 AM
you cannot do anything with it... You still need a backend/Millennium Manager...)

Yes, I remember reading about that a couple of years ago or so, IIRC.  I think I still have the Millennium manual in PDF.

So you have taken on the task of writing a substitute manager application?
There is a project on Github, is that yours?


martin

Quote from: unbeldi on December 29, 2016, 11:47:23 AM
Yes, I remember reading about that a couple of years ago or so, IIRC.  I think I still have the Millennium manual in PDF.

Yep - I have that one (and many others revolving around the Millennium-universe), too :)

Quote from: unbeldi on December 29, 2016, 11:47:23 AM
So you have taken on the task of writing a substitute manager application?
There is a project on Github, is that yours?

There is a good chance, it is - although it's just a collection of manuals and random other documentation (also it's far from being complete - I have still a lot more stuff, that I need to categorize and upload)...

The manager-code I am working on is not yet publicly available on GitHub... So far, the only "home-made" thing I made public is the coinmech-programing-adapter: https://github.com/pc-coholic/millennium-coinmech-programmer

unbeldi

Quote from: martin on December 29, 2016, 11:54:51 AM
Yep - I have that one (and many others revolving around the Millennium-universe), too :)
I am sure you do!
I only had a passing interest...

I think others have had similar difficulties with getting code for AT&T payphones, or perhaps it was GTE.  Not surprising I suppose.
But I remember for one of them there is an application floating around somewhere.
We do have some payphone experts on the Forum...


AE_Collector

#6
Unbeldi, you may be thinking of the Protel Payphone "ExpressNet" management program access made available to us here on CRPF by "Payphone Installer"

Here is the specific post:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=7631.msg151379#msg151379

Terry

unbeldi

Quote from: AE_Collector on December 29, 2016, 12:37:04 PM
Unbeldi, you may be thinking of the Protel Payphone management program (can't recall its proper name at the moment) access made available to us here on CRPF by "Payphone Installer"

Terry

Ah, thanks... that sounds familiar.

Troy K

I actually bought a Millennium just for this, really excited to see the finished product! :)

Payphone installer

Saw your post is this what you are after? This is a phone I have.

Payphone installer

I got this when I was still at a Bell Company many years ago.

martin

#11
Quote from: Payphone installer on May 21, 2017, 09:32:14 PM
Saw your post is this what you are after? This is a phone I have.

Yes and no :-)

When I started this thread, I was looking for firmware-dumps of a Millennium with the TTY-keyboard instead of the quickdial-buttons (the left one in this picture). Ever since, I got corresponding dumps from some friends in Montreal.

But your phone is actually also something I have been looking for - to be honest, I didn't think I would find anyone that owns an eMillennium... When I talked to Telus and Bell Canada, they all told me that the eMillenniums were only rentals from Quortech and that they took them all back when they were decommissioned. I am genuinely jealous of your phone ;-)

If you want to help me with the development of the backend for the Millenniums, please feel free to make a dump of the EEPROMs in your eMillennium and email them to me. Or let me know, if you ever want to donate (for science ;-)) or sell your eMillennium - I would be the first in line :)

Payphone installer

I am looking into this further I have some contacts that may assist in getting info on this. Jim

Troy K

Thought I would post some photos of my phone. It was an ebay find, originally a Qwest phone but I managed to find a Bell Canada bezel for it. Also did up my own instruction card in Adobe indesign. :)

Dominic_ContempraPhones

Quote from: martin on May 22, 2017, 04:19:49 AM
Yes and no :-)

When I started this thread, I was looking for firmware-dumps of a Millennium with the TTY-keyboard instead of the quickdial-buttons (the left one in this picture). Ever since, I got corresponding dumps from some friends in Montreal.

But your phone is actually also something I have been looking for - to be honest, I didn't think I would find anyone that owns an eMillennium... When I talked to Telus and Bell Canada, they all told me that the eMillenniums were only rentals from Quortech and that they took them all back when they were decommissioned. I am genuinely jealous of your phone ;-)

If you want to help me with the development of the backend for the Millenniums, please feel free to make a dump of the EEPROMs in your eMillennium and email them to me. Or let me know, if you ever want to donate (for science ;-)) or sell your eMillennium - I would be the first in line :)

Why would you want that?  That's a Quortech retrofit, and an ugly one at that.  NT had NetVenue -- way better.