Microsoft Telephony API (TAPI) 2.0 header file for Borland Delphi 2.x
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Translated from C to ObjectPascal by hand (alas), by Alexander Staubo, in
approx. three hours and three Cokes. For more information about TAPI, try
the following URL:

* Microsoft Developer Network
  http://www.microsoft.com/msdn/

The Microsoft Platform SDK is for available free for download for a limited
period of time (till March 1997, in fact), including binaries, header
files, samples and assorted documentation.

The archive (d2tapi20.zip) includes a sample application which dials a
user-defined number on the first TAPI device on the system (with the
designated device ID 0). This is a real quick and dirty sample; unless the
device in question is not a modem, the program will fail.

As for TAPI itself, it is not so hot (in my opinion), but it works rather
well in Windows. Why not hot? Well, it is (in my opinion) all balls, and a
unified data transmission interface should have been written a long, long
time ago, possibly in COM. Microsoft continue to update their old DLL-based
APIs to COM-based, server-oriented interfaces, however, so in '97 or '98 we
will probably see a COM framework much like OLE DB under which Microsoft
will place TAPI as an "OLE TAPI" service provider. This is much less ballsy
than the TAPI concept itself, but of course, the time may once come when
programmers are presented with _one_ unified interface to serial storage,
communications, databases etc. Please!

Enough whining; enjoy this little thing I cooked up and write some truly
fascinating TAPI-based programs; have fun!

Forthcoming: Translation of tspi.h, for writing TAPI service providers.
Possibly forthcoming: TAPI components.

Any comments or complaints, email me.

Alexander Staubo
alex@image.no
