Hi all I have built myself a home phone management system based on a PIC16C56. I would like to add an answering machine to it. I don't want to get involved with tape mechanisms and such and so I have decided on a solid state solution. I wonder if anyone knows of a single chip solid state answering machine. I imagine there must be some very cheap ones out there as full digital answering machines with up to 15 minutes message time sell for as low as $AU70. I am looking for the cheapest solution with the simplest interface for a PIC. Thanks in advance. Unfortunately I'm not writing to provide an answer to your question, but it reminded me of my wishlist for a technology I'm sure will be with us within the next year or so, and I was wondering if there was someone on the piclist who had some more info about this... My wishlist is namely that we will sometime soon see a realtime MPEG3 (MP3) decoder/encoder chip. I have hundreds of redundant 1Mb Eproms lying in my attic just waiting for the right project. And I believe that when the first small MP3 decoder chips becomes available, we piclisters will be able to make terrific CD quality speech boards cheaply and that is my main reason for still keeping all those EPROMS. :) So does anybody know if there is alreay a single chip MP3 decoder available on the market or if any such a device is on the design boards somewhere and when it will be available? I just know its bound to happen sooner or later... I just wish they would hurry up with the technology! ;) Rgds Werner ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com