UNIX Serial Port Resources – Pagers & UNIX

This content was originally created, collected, and maintained by Stokely Consulting.
It has moved to SunHELP as of May 2005, and all further updates are done by Bill Bradford.

Freeware and Shareware Products

HylaFAX
A freeware Unix faxing product which includes dial-in, fax-in and out, and pager communications, and handles the port configuration itself without the "split-device trick", and permits the use of dial-in/out on Sun serial expander cards. It’s quite functional, and has excellent installation notes.

QuickPage
A client/server software package to send messages to an alphanumeric pager. Developed specifically for Solaris 2.x, but should compile on other OSs, too. Known to work also on AIX, HP-UX, FreeBSD, and Linux.

C-Kermit 6.0
Can be used to send numeric and alpha PET/IXO/TAP pages. It can make calls and send pages from a serial port and a TCP/IP-connected modem server. It handles the port configuration has a built-in dialer, dial directory, the ability to dial multiple numbers until one answers, automatic redial, etc. It includes a full-featured high-level programming language for total automatation (the PET/IXO/TAP implementation is written in this language). Works on every known variety of UNIX (including all versions of SunOS and Solaris on all platforms), as well as VMS, Windows, OS/2, AOS/VS, VOS, and others. See How Do I Write a Script to Dial a Pager? from the Kermit FAQ.

sendpage
A front end to the PET protocol (a.k.a. IXO or TAP) with built-in aliases, user profiles, modem dialer, sendmail hooks, and email notification.
Runs under most Unix versions. Gnu Public License. Source now being maintained by Counterpoint Networking.

Commercial Products

Semotus Solutions sells wireless products for systems monitoring, API drivers for
integrating wireless comm into applications, and HipLink – an alpha paging applications for Network Mgnt and helpdesk-type solutions.

EtherPage, made by MobileSys, is an enterprise-wide alphanumeric paging package that’s very
easy to use.

FirstPAGE from Netcon Technologies supports all national paging networks, IXO/TAP, alphanumeric pagers. Runs on HP/UX, AIX, Sun, VMS, OS/2, NT. Free trial.

Spatch supports individual or group paging, scheduled paging, different baud rates, long message parsing, and lots more. Runs on all the major (and some minor) Unix versions, plus NT and Win95. Free 30 day demo.

TelAlert by Telamon provides pager notification and interactive voice response capabilities for Unix and NT based platforms and help desk tools.

COS Inc.’s VersaFax, an interesting product which can even go from Web or Email to Alpha pagers.