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* Toorcamp 2018/Shadytel Retrospective - by ThoughtPhreaker *
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So - another couple years, another Toorcamp. I can't speak for everyone else, but whenever it's all said and done with, there's always a window of time where I have to ask myself, "okay, what just happened this past week?" And while it could just be the copious booze consumption that happens every time we do our (~80 this year) installs, I'd like to believe there's some sort of reflection period that's needed with this sort of experience.

So, with that in mind...

- What'd we bring this year?

Like the previous wireline networks, this one was powered by a Definity; an Avaya PBX versed as well in the arts of old iron (for the terminally curious, research it's OS; Oryx/Pecos) as it is in strange implementations. The actual OS is run by an R3081, while an FPGA drives the timeslot interchange bus that provides the speech path, a 68MH360 does... well, whatever it feels like, and an 80C188 performs watchdog and bus assignment tasks with 8051s on peripheral cards. DSP operations are done with some strange, custom 16-bit DSPs. Look up the AT&T DSP16A if you'd like to read more about it.

My pride, joy, and quite frankly, obsession, this year was the Dialogic hardware. There's a million different iterations of this stuff, some more modern than others. The card we used this year (DMV/960A-4T1) is essentially a single board computer with an Intel 960, some 56303 DSPs, and some T1 framers. Oh, and VxWorks. If you were paying attention to anything on 60/61+, this was all custom, event driven C code we made for the board.

Finally, the channel banks - PowerQuicc-based devices with some PICs and SLICs, let us extend the Definity's reach to the eastern end of camp over T1 interfaces.

- What'd we plan this year?

A lot of us made really big plans to one-up ourselves this year; a fax BBS, a custom switch from the ground up, looparound lines, a conference bridge, a greedy collect call platform that harasses you, yet another switch made from Dialogic components - the list goes on. It's easy to say we hit some unexpected hurdles and weren't able to tackle everything last minute, but, well, it happens. There's a good lesson about planning here somewhere. That didn't seem to stop Toorcamp, though; it was great to see a lot of people hatching ideas of their own, like the dial-up ISP from Ada's, or the Unix Haters' Federation's DECTalk IVR. I'd like to see some coordination for next year if anyone is up for it; if it's necessary for example, we can bring along a PCIe card that'll do a large number of modems over DS1s (gotta squeeze out that V.90), and even hook it into an X.25 network if PADs are your sort of thing.

- I want to interconnect with the Shadytel network next year. What should I do to plan ahead?

Drop by and let us know! irc.freenode.org #billingexcellence has a fair number of us. We'd suggest looking into ISDN PRI solutions (a Cisco 2821 and a bunch of T1 VWICs can be had for quite cheap on eBay for example, and Dialogic hardware is always cheap if you're willing to develop code for it. Though variety is the spice of questionable telephony. I'm always down to help develop some more interesting platforms if you are), but there's the possibility we'll go for an entirely analog network for 2020. Don't invest in this sort of thing exclusively for Toorcamp just yet. If you're looking to develop something a little simpler that sits on a subscriber line, let us know, and we can help you take full advantage of the network as we plot it.


Lastly though, seriously - thanks! Telephony has become a huge part of my life over the last decade or so. If anything we do on Doe Bay or otherwise inspires you to explore the network, take a vague interest in it, or even investigate a few half-curiosities, we must be writing at least half of our tariffs right; being able to share this interest has been a privilege.