the microcontroller if there is voice signals on the line varying energy level dtmf signals steady known energy levels or a dial tone or silence on the line steady high or low energy level the determination of the status of the line in conjunction with the user setup mode provides input to the decision of the next machine operation as will be illustrated fig3 is a flowchart illustrating the answer program mode of the present invention in which the tad loops and checks for an incoming call on the telephone line or for the user to activate a key as illustrated in fig3 the tad first determines if the user has pressed a key on the tad decision block 100 this is done by means of the microcontroller reading its rs232 serial data port connected to the touch screen 5 through connection 20 to determine if the screen has been touched the microcontroller 1 is also connected to and monitors the other keys 34a e on the tad if an x y coordinate pair is read and the parameters of the x y pair map onto the boundaries of a known key a true key has been depressed and the microcontroller 1 calls the user mode routine block 101 if no key has been pressed the system next tests if a ring signal is available block 110 if a ring signal is available determined by reading the state of the daa 10 the microcontroller then proceeds to block 120 in which it reads the variable stored in memory indicating the number of rings to wait before answering the incoming call inc the microcontroller then preferably multiplies this number by 6 a standard ring is 2 seconds with a.