Application programming interface for cordless telephones having advanced programmable feature sets

An application programming interface for cordless telephones having advanced programmable feature sets includes a serial bus interface to the base station of a cordless telephone system, a server application programming interface, a server support layer with installable server modules, client application programming interface, and a client layer with client defined applications. According to the presently preferred embodiment, the API of the invention supports at least five feature classes which include: displaying and scrolling text on handsets, displaying softkeys, edit control for I/O from/to handsets, selection control for selecting features from the feature set, and slider control for providing variable input, e.g. volume controls. The client layer is preferably accessible via VISUAL BASIC commands thereby providing easy access to the MICROSOFT graphical user interface.