Operation Manual

The AVM System Architecture
Controller A1 PCMCIA 8 The AVM System Architecture 37
8 The AVM System
Architecture
This chapter will provide you with information about the CAPI
2.0 ISDN interface, the IDM architecture, the AVM system
driver supplied and special CAPI features of the AVM ISDN-
Controller A1 PCMCIA.
8.1 The Applications Interface CAPI 2.0
Once the AVM ISDN-Controller A1 PCMCIA has been installed,
the CAPI 2.0 ISDN interface is available in the computer. All
ISDN features can therefore be used.
What Is CAPI?
COMMON-ISDN-API (CAPI) is a standardized software inter-
face that provides applications with access to ISDN-Control-
lers on basic-rate and primary-rate lines. Applications that
build on this standard interface use uniform mechanisms for
communication over ISDN connections, and thus do not
need to adapt to the peculiarities of particular manufactur-
ers hardware. This means that such applications are also
unaffected by future extensions or hardware modifications.
CAPI makes such changes transparent to the application.
ISDN hardware can vice versa be used with a wide range of
applications.
CAPI contains an abstract definition of ISDN services which
is independent of the underlying telecommunications net-
works or the adapter cards used to connect computers to
ISDN. The specification provides an interface that is easy for
application programmers to use, and thus offers uniform ac-
cess to various ISDN services, such as data, voice and fax
transmission, videoconferencing and telephony.
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