Paging protocol, Telocator Alphanumeric Protocol, "TAP", over TCP/IP?

Question

This is not the "Test Anything Protocol", but rather the "Telocator Alphanumeric Protocol".

I was told by a vendor that there is an IP address and port available to send a "TAP message" to.

However, the vendor provided no other documentation on how to format these messages, and simply has insisted over and over again that this is enough information. Just "send a TAP message to the IP port"....

Can someone provide any ideas on what this might mean and what the formatting of this message might look like? Not sure if it's XML/ASCII/BINARY, run over HTTP(S) or what.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I am looking at the server side of TAP protocol. However, in my research, I found the below clients that will be useful to you for sending TAP messages.

Beepage (Windows version): http://rsug.itd.umich.edu/software/beepage/

Beepage (Unix version): search sourceforge for beepage

Air Messenger: http://www.fileheap.com/software-air-messenger-lite-download-27994.html

You can google TAP specification to see what it means.

Answer 2

TAP is a serial protocol. You can download a pdf from http://www.phoner.de/TAP_V1P8.PDF. It is designed to operate over the PSTN (telephone line); you dial a network provider and upload your text message and recipient number, then hang up. The network provider then sends the messages.

To be honest this is already an obsolete technology. Here in the UK O2 discontinued its TAP service at the end of March 2012 leaving just the Vodafone service (which doesn't seem to have worked for a while either). From what I can gather it is similar tale in other countries. You would be better off looking at SMS gateway services, such as Clickatell, or e-mail to SMS services. In this age of smartphones and push e-mail I suspect that pure e-mail notifications will eventually take over.

Answer 3

It has been a while since this question was asked, 3 years+ but had the very same problem with a Hospital client that still has a pager system like this and also said we have given you the ip and port make it work.

Used php to open a socket connection to the server and port. Then sending the required TAP commands and getting responses from the server.

The server I was targeting did not require a username or password to log in and instead of reading the responses and looping to wait for them which could be done with socket_read($socket, 1024); I just paused the script for two seconds before sending the next command. Server did not like it when I closed the socket and ended up letting the server do this after sending the end of message sequence. You could send more than one message if you omit the end of message part, but the server i had to deal with crashed a lot and the below worked for me. the client will buy a new system in 6 months time with a far better interphase, therefore not looking into this any further.

//$msg_to = the pager number
//$msg_text = the message
//$host  = ip of server
//$port  = port number

$message = chr(2).$msg_to.chr(13).$msg_text.chr(13).chr(3);
$checksum = calcChecksum($message);
$message .= $checksum.chr(13);
$CR = chr(13);
$end = chr(27).chr(4).chr(13); //<ESC><EOT><CR>
$login = chr(27)."PG1".chr(13);  //<ESC>PG1thepwd<CR>
//- <ACK><CR><ESC>[p<CR> check for [p

$socket = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0) or die("Could not create socket");
$result = socket_connect($socket, $host, $port) or die("Could not connect to server"); 
sleep(1); stream_set_timeout($socket, 5);
socket_write($socket, $CR, strlen($CR)) or die("Could not send <CR> to server");
sleep(2);
socket_write($socket, $message, strlen($message)) or die("Could not send message to server");
sleep(2);
socket_write($socket, $end, strlen($end)) or die("Could not send end to server");

function calcChecksum($message) {
$split = str_split($message); $sum = 0;
foreach ($split as $value) { $numb = ord($value); $sum += $numb; }
$d3 = 48 + $sum - intval($sum / 16) * 16;
$sum = intval($sum / 16);
$d2 = 48 + $sum - intval($sum / 16) * 16;
$sum = intval($sum / 16);
$d1 = 48 + $sum - intval($sum / 16) * 16;
return chr($d1).chr($d2).chr($d3);
};