asterisk users - Sep 2004 - Zaptel 'Under the Hood' Project

Hello,

After poking and prodding at Asterisk and Zaptel for over a couple years 
now, I've dedicated some time to actually reading the code and trying to 
figure it out.

It's been fascinating. With the driver source on one part of the screen 
and a pdf of "Linux Device Drivers" on another part I've aquainted
myself with device driver programming and the interesting hardware on 
the wildcards. I've always thought Asterisk and Zaptel were two of the 
coolest FOSS projects around and now that I've
spelunked through the code a little bit I'm curious:

Has anyone ever wrote a zaptel "under the hood" type of document, 
discussing how the pseudo tdm bus works, the zaptel hardware, etc? If 
so, please point me there.

If not, I'd like to take a stab at compiling a paper or article about 
zaptel for a general audience, technically inclined but not hard core 
technical, i.e. people like me who
have used asterisk but always wondered how it worked down to the 
hardware, spans, channels, chunks, samples level. Some help from the 
community of course would
be great, perhaps through using a blog or wiki.

Once the zaptel "dragon" is dispatched, I'd then focus on
Asterisk.

What do you all think?

Regards,
Victor

+++ Victor Rini [06/09/04 18:12 -0700]:
> Hello,
> 
> After poking and prodding at Asterisk and Zaptel for over a couple years 
> now, I've dedicated some time to actually reading the code and trying
to
> figure it out.
> 
> It's been fascinating. With the driver source on one part of the screen
> and a pdf of "Linux Device Drivers" on another part I've
aquainted
> myself with device driver programming and the interesting hardware on 
> the wildcards. I've always thought Asterisk and Zaptel were two of the 
> coolest FOSS projects around and now that I've
> spelunked through the code a little bit I'm curious:
> 
> Has anyone ever wrote a zaptel "under the hood" type of document,
> discussing how the pseudo tdm bus works, the zaptel hardware, etc? If 
> so, please point me there.
> 
> If not, I'd like to take a stab at compiling a paper or article about 
> zaptel for a general audience, technically inclined but not hard core 
> technical, i.e. people like me who
> have used asterisk but always wondered how it worked down to the 
> hardware, spans, channels, chunks, samples level. Some help from the 
> community of course would
> be great, perhaps through using a blog or wiki.
> 
> Once the zaptel "dragon" is dispatched, I'd then focus on
Asterisk.
> 
> What do you all think?
> 
> Regards,
> Victor
> _______________________________________________
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
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>   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Sounds extemly intresting maybe you should go right ahead and write a page on
that. 
-- 
regards
Vikram (http://www.vicramresearch.com)

Victor Rini wrote:
> Hello,
>
> After poking and prodding at Asterisk and Zaptel for over a couple 
> years now, I've dedicated some time to actually reading the code and 
> trying to figure it out.
>
> It's been fascinating. With the driver source on one part of the 
> screen and a pdf of "Linux Device Drivers" on another part
I've
> aquainted myself with device driver programming and the interesting 
> hardware on the wildcards. I've always thought Asterisk and Zaptel 
> were two of the coolest FOSS projects around and now that I've
> spelunked through the code a little bit I'm curious:
>
> Has anyone ever wrote a zaptel "under the hood" type of document,
> discussing how the pseudo tdm bus works, the zaptel hardware, etc? If 
> so, please point me there.
>
> If not, I'd like to take a stab at compiling a paper or article about 
> zaptel for a general audience, technically inclined but not hard core 
> technical, i.e. people like me who
> have used asterisk but always wondered how it worked down to the 
> hardware, spans, channels, chunks, samples level. Some help from the 
> community of course would
> be great, perhaps through using a blog or wiki.
>
> Once the zaptel "dragon" is dispatched, I'd then focus on
Asterisk.
>
> What do you all think?
>
> Regards,
> Victor
> _______________________________________________
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
I can't speak for anyone else, but I sure as hell would be interested in 
such a document.  I don't think it would even just be for the 
"technically inclined but not hard core technical" guys either.  I 
consider myself pretty "hard core" but I just don't have the time
to sit
down and learn about how it all works on the inside.  There's just too 
many other projects that need to be done.  So in my opinion, a document 
that just lays it out in plain english would save me a heck load of time 
and allow me to learn about something that I unfortunately just don't 
have the time (or motivation) to figure out for myself and therefore 
probably wouldn't end up learning about otherwise. :)

My 2c.

Jamie

In article <413D0AE8.9050703@comcast.net>,
Victor Rini <victor-rini@comcast.net> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> After poking and prodding at Asterisk and Zaptel for over a couple years 
> now, I've dedicated some time to actually reading the code and trying
to
> figure it out.
> 
> It's been fascinating. With the driver source on one part of the screen
> and a pdf of "Linux Device Drivers" on another part I've
aquainted
> myself with device driver programming and the interesting hardware on 
> the wildcards. I've always thought Asterisk and Zaptel were two of the 
> coolest FOSS projects around and now that I've
> spelunked through the code a little bit I'm curious:
> 
> Has anyone ever wrote a zaptel "under the hood" type of document,
> discussing how the pseudo tdm bus works, the zaptel hardware, etc? If 
> so, please point me there.
I don't know, but in case you hadn't already found it, there is some
interesting information at http://www.zapatatelephony.org/

You have to explore the links several deep to get at some of the useful
nuggets, such as the conferencing architecture.

It's all a little out of date, but mostly still applicable.

Cheers
Tony
-- 
Tony Mountifield
Work: tony@softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: tony@mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org

Victor... You Go Boy!!!  I think many of us, me at least, would welcome some
doc on the underpinnings of Zap and friends.
I'll be happy to be a "second set of eyes" to help edit such a
document.

Jon


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Victor Rini" <victor-rini@comcast.net>
To: <asterisk-users@lists.digium.com>
Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 9:12 PM
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Zaptel 'Under the Hood' Project

> Hello,
>
> After poking and prodding at Asterisk and Zaptel for over a couple years
> now, I've dedicated some time to actually reading the code and trying
to
> figure it out.
>
> It's been fascinating. With the driver source on one part of the screen
> and a pdf of "Linux Device Drivers" on another part I've
aquainted
> myself with device driver programming and the interesting hardware on
> the wildcards. I've always thought Asterisk and Zaptel were two of the
> coolest FOSS projects around and now that I've
> spelunked through the code a little bit I'm curious:
>
> Has anyone ever wrote a zaptel "under the hood" type of document,
> discussing how the pseudo tdm bus works, the zaptel hardware, etc? If
> so, please point me there.
>
> If not, I'd like to take a stab at compiling a paper or article about
> zaptel for a general audience, technically inclined but not hard core
> technical, i.e. people like me who
> have used asterisk but always wondered how it worked down to the
> hardware, spans, channels, chunks, samples level. Some help from the
> community of course would
> be great, perhaps through using a blog or wiki.
>
> Once the zaptel "dragon" is dispatched, I'd then focus on
Asterisk.
>
> What do you all think?
>
> Regards,
> Victor
> _______________________________________________
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>    http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>

Hello Everyone,

The blog for the project is up and has a couple of posts. Haloscan 
commenting is enabled. I've included a site feed but I'm a little unsure
about it.

See http://zapteldoc.blogspot.com.

Regards,
Victor

Hello All,

I've got a new post up on the blog. I would have had it up sooner but 
blogspot was having trouble.

I even included neat graphic!

Check it out: http://zapteldoc.blogspot.com

By the way someone mentioned that my choice of color scheme wasn't 
optimal so to speak - i.e. lacked contrast. I'm not a web designer so I 
was inclined to go with one of blogspot's limited theme choices. If 
anyone has a preference of blogspot theme or can give a succint set of 
instructions on manipulating the current theme - please let me know. 
I'll defer to your judgement.

Regards,
Victor

Greetings All,

I have a new post on the blog. It goes a little bit more in depth on 
wcfxo.c and touches on zaptel.c. Two more screen shots. Loads of fun.

Take a look: http://zapteldoc.blogspot.com

Regards,
Victor

On 9 Sep 2004 at 23:24, Victor Rini wrote:
> Greetings All,
> 
> I have a new post on the blog. It goes a little bit more in depth on
> wcfxo.c and touches on zaptel.c. Two more screen shots. Loads of fun.
> 
> Take a look: http://zapteldoc.blogspot.com
> 
> Regards,
> Victor
Keep up the good work!

And sage for firefox reads your site feed great!

Cheers,

Matt Riddell
http://www.sineapps.com

Hi all
I have installed an E100P. I have loaded zaptel and wct1xxp. My
zaptel.conf is the next:

span=1,1,0,ccs,hdb3,crc4,yellow
bchan=1-15,17-31
dchan=16
loadzone=es
defaultzone=es

My zapata.conf is the next:

[channels]
switchtype = euroisdn
language=es
signalling = pri_cpe
pridialplan = local
prilocaldialplan = local
echocancel = yes
context = default
group=1
channel => 1-15,17-31

When I start asterisk it says:

 [chan_zap.so]Sep 10 09:22:09 WARNING[1076253312]: loader.c:242
ast_load_resource: /usr/lib/asterisk/modules/chan_zap.so: undefined
symbol: ast_pickup_call
Sep 10 09:22:09 WARNING[1076253312]: loader.c:374 load_modules: Loading
module chan_zap.so failed!




Any idea?


Regards,
srsergio