Other Mistakes
Other mistakes were made as well; the newest Merlin system, the Merlin “Magix”, is physically smaller, but the cards are mostly compatible with the older Merlin legend systems and cards, and most Legend cards can be removed from their plastic clamshells and put into the Magix chassis, which has card guides in it. I did buy an extra Legend T1 card I hoped to pop into the Magix, but as it turned out, the Legend T1 card had a built-in CSU/DSU that required the full height of the Legend chassis, so I had to grab a (cheap) Magix T1 card. Again we’re talking tens of dollars here, although all-in this stuff does add up!
Other Magix Notes:
All of the Merlin Magix cards can be (carefully) put into a Merlin Legend backplane for testing purposes, and ran with the Merlin Legend power supply. I say “carefully” and “testing purposes”, because without the clamshells, the boards aren’t supported very well. You CAN get Magix clamshell adapters though, and an entire Magix PBX can be put into a Legend chassis/backplane. See the picture below – notice that some cards don’t look the same – they’re newer Magix cards in an older Legend chassis, and having a Magix processor, its likely a Magix-upgraded system.
Last but not least, one downside to the Magix system is that it doesn’t support the older analog Merlin phones that have the space-age look, which is a shame!
Moral of the Story
Those were my biggest “gotchas” so far; none of which were the end of the world nor cost me a ton of money, but certainly disappointments and made me spend more to fix. It certainly would have been better to just spend a little more up front to get a complete plug-and-play system. Also I shouldn’t have assumed that ISDN is ISDN as well, but hey this is all about learning, right? RIGHT? Guys?
Ok enough negative Nancy stuff…let’s play! Part 3 coming soon!