📟 PulseTone-95: GhostLine

Resurrecting 1995 ITU-T Q.23 DTMF Landline Signaling & Motorola POCSAG Pager Telemetry for Autonomous Agentic Healthcare

Kiroween 2026 Hackathon — Track: Resurrection
Best Kiro Crew App Bonus Contender

⚡ What Dead Tech Was Resurrected & Why?

The Dead Tech

1. 1995 ITU-T Q.23 Touch-Tone DTMF Signaling: The iconic dual-frequency matrix signaling standard (697–941 Hz low group $\times$ 1209–1633 Hz high group) that powered Bell System landline telephones throughout the late 20th century.

2. 1995 Motorola POCSAG Alphanumeric Pagers: The 1200-baud radiopaging protocol radiating compact capcode messages ([CAP:0995-MED]) and piercing 2400 Hz acoustic chirps that kept on-call physicians and emergency responders connected prior to mobile internet.

Why Resurrect It in 2026?

Modern smartphone healthcare apps fail the patients who need them most:

• Eleanor Vance (Age 78) suffers from advanced Parkinson’s disease with resting intention tremors and macular degeneration. She cannot reliably tap tiny capacitive glass buttons, dismiss iOS permission modals, or navigate multi-factor authentication (2FA) SMS codes.

• However, Eleanor possesses 50+ years of physical landline telephone muscle memory. She knows the tactile geometry of a 12-key telephone keypad by heart.

• PulseTone-95: GhostLine resurrects 1995 landline DTMF macros (1#, 2#, 3#, 0#, 9#) and Motorola POCSAG pager telemetry as the primary physical control surface for an autonomous Model Context Protocol (MCP) healthcare and commerce engine.

• Behind the scenes, dual-frequency sine waves synthesized mathematically via the browser's native Web Audio API trigger real-time AI agents that log doses, audit prescriptions against the 2023 AGS Beers Criteria, settle autonomous refills via PayPal Vault, and page her daughter Sarah Connor when clinical intervention is required.

Related MCP server: CareCircle MCP Server

🏛️ End-to-End System Architecture

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                               Next.js 15 Client Interface                             |
|                                                                                       |
|  +--------------------------------+       +----------------------------------------+  |
|  |   1995 ITU-T Q.23 DTMF Pad     |       |   1995 Motorola POCSAG Pager LCD       |  |
|  | - Pure Web Audio OscillatorDSP |       | - 2400 Hz Quad-Chirp Synthesizer       |  |
|  | - Exact Dual-Tone Synthesis    |       | - 1200-Baud Alphanumeric Frame Stream  |  |
|  | - Senior Muscle-Memory Macros  |       | - Real-time Carrier & Frequency Readout|  |
|  +--------------------------------+       +----------------------------------------+  |
|                                   \       /                                           |
|                                    v     v                                            |
|                        AG Grid v36 Clinical-Financial Ledger                          |
+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
                                           | HTTP JSON / SSE Turn Stream
                                           v
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                       Node.js 22 MCP Server (`backend-mcp`)                          |
|                                                                                       |
|  +-------------------------------+         +---------------------------------------+  |
|  |     /api/agent/turn Engine    | <-----> |   ITU-T Q.23 Decoding & Telemetry     |  |
|  +-------------------------------+         +---------------------------------------+  |
|                 |                                              |                      |
|                 v                                              v                      |
|  +-------------------------------+         +---------------------------------------+  |
|  |  2023 AGS Beers Criteria Safe |         | Autonomous Family Wallet ($50 Cap)   |  |
|  |  Drug Interaction Checker     |         | - Under $50: PayPal Vault Settlement  |  |
|  |  (Warfarin, Aspirin, Diazepam)|         | - Over $50: Caregiver Pager / Invoice |  |
|  +-------------------------------+         +---------------------------------------+  |
|                 |                                              |                      |
|                 +-----------------------+----------------------+                      |
|                                         v                                             |
|                    +-----------------------------------------+                        |
|                    |   SQLite WAL Clinical-Financial Store   |                        |
|                    +-----------------------------------------+                        |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

🎛️ 1995 DTMF Macro Reference & Audio Signal Processing

All telecom signaling in PulseTone-95 is synthesized purely mathematically using browser AudioContext sine oscillators (zero external MP3/WAV assets, 100% offline resilient, zero copyright liabilities).

$$s(t) = A_1 \sin(2\pi f_{\text{low}} t) + A_2 \sin(2\pi f_{\text{high}} t)$$

📟 1995 Killer Hardware Subsystems

1. Live Microphone Acoustic Coupler & 8-Band Goertzel Oscilloscope:

   • Real-time acoustic reception via navigator.mediaDevices.getUserMedia and Web Audio AnalyserNode (fftSize = 4096, $\approx 10.77\text{ Hz}$ bin resolution).

   • Live spectrum visualizer monitoring 4 row frequencies ($697, 770, 852, 941\text{ Hz}$) and 4 column frequencies ($1209, 1336, 1477, 1633\text{ Hz}$) with active SNR meter and Goertzel tone lock.

   • Allows users to play physical DTMF phone tones or sound clips into the laptop microphone to automatically drive MCP clinical & commerce actions!

2. PSTN Landline 300Hz–3400Hz Voice Filter & Mechanical Relay Clicks:

   • Native Web Audio biquad filter chain (Highpass $300\text{ Hz}$ + Lowpass $3400\text{ Hz}$) recreating authentic plain old telephone service (POTS) copper wire voice frequency response.

   • Synthesizes realistic 1995 Bell System handset plunger relay clicks ($15\text{ ms}$ noise burst + $180\text{ Hz} / 120\text{ Hz}$ resonant thud) on off-hook and on-hook events.

3. 1995 Pharmacy Thermal Fax Receipt Drawer (ITU-T T.30):

   • Synthesizes authentic pharmacy thermal fax paper-feed stepper motor acoustics ($28\text{ Hz}$ pulsed white noise through an $1800\text{ Hz}$ bandpass filter + $1400\text{ Hz}$ completion beep).

   • Renders a collapsible 200 DPI monospaced thermal fax slip complete with Beers Criteria safety clearance and autonomous PayPal Vault settlement proof.

🎃 How We Used Kiro (Kiroween 2026 Technical Write-Up)

Kiroween 2026 evaluates projects across 8 technical dimensions. Below is the detailed breakdown of how Kiro powered the resurrection of PulseTone-95:

1. Kiro IDE, CLI & Kiro Crew Workflow

We utilized the Kiro toolchain to build and coordinate specialized AI agents that executed our development pipeline with deterministic rigor. The system was structured into multi-workspace configurations (frontend and backend-mcp), leveraging Kiro tasks and background process orchestrators to execute builds, typechecks, and tests concurrently.

2. Custom Agents (/.kiro/agents/kiro-crew.json)

For the Best Kiro Crew App bonus prize, we configured a specialized 3-agent Kiro Crew:

• telecom-dsp-architect: Specialized in 1990s telephony DSP, Goertzel filter calculations, and ITU-T Q.23 frequency synthesis using Web Audio API without third-party audio dependencies.

• geriatric-beers-auditor: Pharmacological specialist enforcing the 2023 American Geriatrics Society (AGS) Beers Criteria knowledge base across 20 clinical interaction rules.

• mcp-commerce-orchestrator: Healthcare financial logic agent managing PayPal Vault 1-click settlements, caregiver escrow invoicing, and SQLite WAL ledger persistence.

3. Agent Hooks (/.kiro/hooks/)

We deployed automated Kiro Agent Hooks to protect clinical and schema invariants:

• clinical-pbt-guard.json: Triggers npm run test --workspace=backend-mcp on file save whenever files in backend-mcp/src/services/ are edited, ensuring no clinical rule can drift.

• mcp-schema-sync.json: Validates tool definitions against Model Context Protocol standards whenever files in backend-mcp/src/tools/ or server.ts change.

4. Spec-Driven Development (/.kiro/specs/) vs. Vibe Coding

Rather than unbounded "vibe coding", the entire resurrection was executed against formal specifications in /.kiro/specs/dtmf-pocsag-resurrection/:

• requirements.md: Authored in Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax (EARS) format (WHEN [trigger] THE SYSTEM SHALL [response]) defining strict behavioral criteria.

• design.md: Mathematical formulation of ITU-T dual-sine wave generation and POCSAG alphanumeric telemetry frames.

• tasks.md: Execution-constrained, verifiable implementation checklist mapped to automated test suites.

5. Steering Docs (/.kiro/steering/)

Persistent steering directives guided every architectural choice:

• product.md: Anchored development around Eleanor Vance (78, Parkinson's) and Sarah Connor (caregiver), enforcing 0-frustration landline muscle memory interfaces.

• tech.md: Mandated pure mathematical DSP in Web Audio API with zero copyrighted sound files.

• clinical-and-ui-guardrails.md: Strictly locked the existing visual styling, color palette, and typography of PulseTone-95: GhostLine while enforcing the $50 autonomous wallet cap.

6. Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server Architecture

The Node.js 22 MCP server implements the complete tri-pillar specification:

• Tools: orderRefill (PayPal Vault), checkDrugInteractions (Beers Criteria), logDoseStatus, recordVitals, clinicalAdvisor.

• Resources: Streamable JSON resources (pulsetone95://patient/eleanor-vance/adherence-30d, pulsetone95://clinical/prescriptions/active).

• Prompts: Standardized clinical negotiation and emergency escalation prompt templates.

7. Property-Based Testing (PBT) Invariants & Edge Cases Caught

Using fast-check in backend-mcp/tests/kiroweenPbt.test.ts, we verified 4 core invariants with 100+ random iterations per property:

• Property 1 (DTMF Frequency Determinism & Noise Rejection):

  • Edge Case Caught by PBT: Fast-check discovered that a $-8.1%$ frequency perturbation on digit '0' ($941\text{ Hz} \times (1 - 0.081) \approx 864.7\text{ Hz}$) inadvertently collided with the upper tolerance window of digit '8' ($852\text{ Hz} \times 1.015 = 864.78\text{ Hz}$), since both digits share the identical column frequency ($1336\text{ Hz}$). PBT led us to implement exact inter-tone guard band verification ($+2%$ to $+6%$) to guarantee line noise rejection.

• Property 2 (2023 AGS Beers Criteria Safety Invariant):

  • Proved that arbitrary casing (wArFaRiN, aSpIrIn), leading/trailing whitespace, and dosage variations NEVER bypass detection. Proved that high-risk benzodiazepines (Diazepam) are strictly flagged as AVOID in seniors.

• Property 3 (Autonomous Family Wallet $50 Cap Invariant):

  • Proved that for any refill price $P \in [$0.01, $500.00]$ and current spend $S \in [$0.00, $50.00]$, autonomous Vault capture is permitted IF AND ONLY IF $S + P \le $50.00$; any transaction over $$50.00$ escalates to a caregiver invoice and POCSAG alert.

• Property 4 (Goertzel / FFT Spectral Bin Orthogonality at 44.1kHz & 48kHz):

  • Proved that all 8 ITU-T Q.23 DTMF tones ($697, 770, 852, 941, 1209, 1336, 1477, 1633\text{ Hz}$) map to strictly unique FFT bins with a minimum separation of $\ge 6$ bins across both $44.1\text{ kHz}$ and $48\text{ kHz}$ audio sample rates with up to $\pm 1.5%$ frequency drift.

8. Kiro Powers & Bundled Best Practices

We utilized Kiro Powers to enforce zero-trust security (preventing accidental credential leaks), maintain ACID compliance across SQLite WAL transactions, and ensure full WCAG AAA contrast accessibility for geriatric usability.

🧪 Test Verification Suite

All 109 Vitest tests (98 original regression tests + 11 Property-Based Tests) pass with 100% success:

 ✓ tests/kiroweenPbt.test.ts (11 tests)
   ✓ Property 1: ITU-T Q.23 DTMF Encoding/Decoding Determinism & Noise Rejection (4 tests)
     ✓ proves bijectivity: for any sequence of valid DTMF digits, encoding and decoding returns exact sequence without collision
     ✓ proves noise tolerance within +/- 1.2% in-band jitter: decoding remains 100% deterministic
     ✓ proves out-of-band rejection: frequencies in inter-tone guard band (+2% to +6%) are rejected as line noise
     ✓ proves that any frequency deviation outside +/- 1.5% never decodes to the original digit
   ✓ Property 2: 2023 AGS Beers Criteria Clinical Safety Invariants (3 tests)
     ✓ proves Warfarin + Aspirin always triggers a CRITICAL bleeding warning across arbitrary casing and whitespace
     ✓ proves Lisinopril + Potassium always triggers a HIGH hyperkalemia warning across arbitrary casing and whitespace
     ✓ proves Diazepam (high-risk benzodiazepine) in geriatric patients is NEVER silently approved
   ✓ Property 3: Autonomous Family Wallet $50.00 Spending Cap Invariant (2 tests)
     ✓ proves autonomous Vault capture is permitted IF AND ONLY IF S + P <= $50.00
     ✓ proves exact boundary condition at $50.00 threshold
   ✓ Property 4: ITU-T Q.23 Goertzel / FFT Spectral Bin Orthogonality (44.1kHz & 48kHz) (2 tests)
     ✓ proves that all 8 DTMF tones map to mutually orthogonal FFT bins with zero collision and min separation >= 6 bins
     ✓ proves frequency deviation up to +/-1.5% maintains bin separation without collision
 ✓ tests/tools.test.ts (14 tests)
 ✓ tests/agenticCommerce.test.ts (7 tests)
 ✓ tests/agentTurn.test.ts (13 tests)
 ✓ tests/mcpPrimitives.test.ts (10 tests)
 ✓ tests/bedrockEnterprise.test.ts (22 tests)
 ✓ tests/scheduleAndTemporal.test.ts (6 tests)
 ✓ tests/medicineCrud.test.ts (3 tests)
 ✓ tests/paypalService.test.ts (11 tests)
 ✓ tests/authMultiUser.test.ts (6 tests)

 Test Files  10 passed (10)
      Tests  109 passed (109)

🚀 Quickstart & Reproduction

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22+

• npm 10+

Installation & Test Execution

# 1. Clone repository
git clone <repo-url>
cd PulseTone-MD

# 2. Install dependencies
npm install

# 3. Run complete test suite (Vitest + Fast-Check PBT)
npm run test --workspace=backend-mcp

# 4. Typecheck frontend
npx tsc --noEmit --project frontend/tsconfig.json

# 5. Launch application
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser. Tap [1#], [2#], or [9#] to experience 1995 ITU-T Q.23 dual-tone synthesis and watch the autonomous MCP healthcare agent respond!