I work at a hotel and we have a Mitel SX-200 Digital system (not IP - we have analog and SuperSet phones). How can I change the name on an analog extension from the console? I found Form 9, but when I try to enter letters from the Console phone, they just show up as numbers.

Thanks!

You can't. It needs to be done either from programming (for analog) or either through programming or from the superkey (for digital sets).

Connection with a laptop is required.

Or, if you have a PMS interface, PMS can do it.

A side note: The SX200D -- if you're describing it correctly, it's a huge boxy thing, like a refrigerator -- backs up onto a 5 1/4" floppy disk. Every programming change requires writing to that disk, and every programming session requires reading from that disk.

If your 5 1/4 drives and/or floppies should go, you will have serious problems with the system. I recommend two things:

1.) Don't make a lot of programming changes unnecessarily, especially for things as trivial as name displays.

2.) Put money into Capital Expenses for a system upgrade soon. You need to plan ahead, so that when TSHTF, you've already allocated/accrued the cash to deal with the replacement.

Oh - OK then. What kind of connection is that? Special cable? Where would I connect to?
I really thought our phone guy just did the extension right from the console.
I have a PMS interface, but this isn't an extension that the PMS sets the name for.

If the phone guy does it from the console, then he has activated the port on the console. It's serial / terminal emulation.

Ok - well does it take a special cable or what? Just a plain 'ol serial cable? What about the Baud rate, etc?

telephoneguy has brought up a valid point. However, the program discs 'may' be 3.5 rather than 5 1/4, depending on the software release.

As for the cable, the port on the console is a regular RS232 "STANDARD" (OXYMORON) connection. Hyperterm works well for programming, once it's set up correctly for the Mitel application. As for protocol, most likely 8, 1, none and 1200-19,200. Try locked speed, the Mitel doesn't react very well to 'self-adjusting' software.

Would it be possible to replace the 5 1/4" or 3 1/2" drive with a Solid State Drive? Is the SX200D drive interface standard IDE or Shugart or proprietary?

FYI, Standard 3.5 drives can be used, AS LONG AS THE CAN BE ADDRESSED ON THE #2 OR 'B' CONTROL LINE. I have no idea why, but Mitel decided to use the original 'B' drive address. (I believe the 5.25 drives are the same.)

As for subbing a solid state drive.... I don't know if anyone has tried it. Be aware that the Mitel OS is proprietary. Neither DOS/WINDOWS nor MAC compatible. It would be nice if it could be done, but as pointed out above, the read/writes are almost continuous, and I fear that the SS drives have some limit to the # of read/writes before they fail. Of course, so do the floppies, but their problem is more a hardware problem than a media problem. And you are using a platform that has been out of production for at least 15 years!

Owain, the drive looks like a IDE floppy, but as LH said, the OS is proprietary and is not FAT or NTFS.

You can obtain the database through a terminal emulator program as a FAT16/32 file, which can then be edited, but it is not world-readable, even then. And the Generic -- forget about it.

So if you got a solid state drive to work, you couldn't copy the Generic to the drive, so you'd be SOL.

And as LH said -- 15+ years out of production. The LAST generic for this was Lightware 15/16, and that's 5 releases before the platform changed to ICP. Unless it's a shop switch that you're screwing with just as a hobby, I would not attempt to alter the Hardware.

Nope - mine isn't fridge sized. We have about 4 of these:
https://www.telephonemagic.com/images/mitel/sx-200-cabinet-300.jpg
No floppy drive or anything like that. Just a bunch of those bays.
We have had this since ~2000 - so its not THAT old.

With the 200EL/ML, which you have, the console does not allow you to program a name on an extension. To program a name you would need to program from a terminal program such as hyperterminal that is connected to the maint. port on the main control cabinet.

Okay, you're at least LW17, which backs up onto a laptop.

If the phone you're trying to change name display on is a SuperSet, use the blue key on the superset. Otherwise, have the Phone Guy make the change next time he comes around.

Also ask him to back up your database, just for S&G.

Not a superset, but a plain ol' analog phone.

He'll be around at some point so I will just get him to do it.
Thanks1

As telephoneguy suggested, make sure he does a backup of the program! It can be backed up onto a Floppy disc. Or a hard drive. Never tried a CD, but I suppose it would? Cheap Insurance!