Novation CAT - The J-CAT

The J-CAT

The J-CAT was Novation's first attempt to make a "smart modem", albeit in a rather non-standard fashion. Its most basic feature was that J-CAT could be placed in a mode where it would automatically pick up the phone if it was called, offering rudimentary auto-answer capability. In an era when it could be safely assumed that the remote user would hang up when they were finished their call, as they were likely using an acoustic coupler modem like the original CAT, the lack of a "hang up my phone" command was not a real problem. This made the J-CAT useful for BBS use; Novation ran a simple one to allow users to test their new modems.

The J-CAT also supported another non-standard feature that allowed direct control of the phone line. Instead of using in-band signalling, like the Smartmodem, the J-CAT passed the on/off-hook control, carrier detect and phone status indication to the computer through otherwise unused pins in the RS-232C connector. The computer could pulse the hook line to simulate pulse dialing or hang up, and read the status pin to look for line signals like ringing or busy (any noise on the line was reported as "1"). Using these features required a computer able to signal on spare pins, often requiring a second connector and a custom cable to support it. Combined with proper software this made the J-CAT fairly "smart", although Novation was careful to state it was not a "smart modem". Operation was generally similar to the APPLE-CAT in concept. Interestingly, the J-CAT was released after the Smartmodem 300, so, unsurprisingly, it was never very popular even though it was fairly low-cost (for the era).