I am setting up a very small office for a friend and will be changing from an absolutely ancient Comdial system to a nicely less ancient Nitsuko 124i.

It is already running (breadboarded) so I can learn & program it.
It came with an NVM2000 with NVM2002 v5 s/w, and that is also running with 2 ports connected.
I found and got and printed the voluminous docs for it too...

In the NVM2000 there are 2 ISA cards, 1 full-length Rhetorix and the other 1/2 length unbranded.
I got some help from a man more familiar with these than I and the ports on the 1/2 card weren't fully working, so it has been shut off in the s/w and is no longer used.

Since this system is really a perfect match for this tiny office with the need for only a single voicemail box, my one worry is how many times I've seen the old/ISA based NVM2000 written about as prone to fail and expensive to replace.

My questions:
1)
Is there an easy/cheaper way to get the single VM box needed via PC - single box - or even via using a simple answering machine on an analog port ?
2)
I've read what posts as I can find here and seen mention of using Asterisk for VM only as well as vague mention of other software-> would anyone please point me to what may be usable, PC based and would have inexpensive cards I could put into an ordinary PC for the VM s/w ?

Thanks !