What about distinctive ringing? It should be available in most areas.
Get a distinctive ring switch (sometimes a fax switch, etc). You'd have
to pay each month for another number, but there would be no rewiring
needed. I know a non monthly cost situation might be preferable.

Building a simple two choice answering system shouldn't be too hard. ISD
chip to record the quick message, then a dtmf decoder to figure out what
button was pressed. I guess you'd then have to generate a ring signal to
ring the correct phone.

Hope that helps,

Josh
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Lawrence Lile wrote:
> My father-in-law has a situation where he would like a system to answer his
> phone:  "Press 1 if you want Joe, Press 2 if you want Jim"  the phone siganl
> would end up in two places, either at his renter's house, or his cabin right
> out back which he stays in all summer.  Right now, he jsut has a phone line
> to both, resulting in the inconvenience that everyone tries to answer
> everyone else's calls.

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