Re: Flight of fantasy

[James Derrick <james@xxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 15 Nov 2000 20:18:21 GMT, you wrote:

>After a While, I finally
>came out with a design for a distributed, multi-master, message-passing
>system, with built-in redundancy, and which provides whole house
multi-zone
>X10, IR, VR, TTS, and MP3 audio over 1 SINGLE CAT5 cable between zones!
A simple, lightweight system, then ;-)

Can I guess at 100bT Ethernet and TCP/IP?

>Now, it seems to me like it should work as I think it does, (but of
course
>you may know better!), and it is nothing more than a flight of my
fantasy at
>the moment, but I'd sure be interested to know what any other seasoned
>HA'ers make of my ideas...
Well, I also had a 'grand vision' a couple of years ago for a similar
networked architecture, and put it on the web:
http://www.amarok.demon.co.uk/dl/dl_protocol.html

This got as far as a TCP/IP based weather station driver, an 8255 IO
card driver and Dan Lancini's x10d (TCP/IP based CM12U driver)
http://www.amarok.demon.co.uk/aned/aned_driver.html

Sun reckon 'the network is the computer' and I tend to agree. The
problem comes when you want to link a RS232-based PIC heating
thermostat (I got as far as a spec to design my own) to a x10
controlled fan heater.

Ignoring the hardware, how does one device get to know about the other
in a consistent way? "A1 AON" is not really flexible enough.

Perhaps Java and Jini or HPNA will solve this with a naming service
and comms server. In the meantime, hackers keep reinventing homebrew
scripts (Unix shell, VB, Perl...) or save up to use a commercial
package.

There has to be a better way...

>If anyones' interested enough, drop
>me a mail privately, and I'll send it to anyone who fancies a look...
I'd be happy to review another dreamer's grand plan!

James

---
James Derrick    james@xxxxxxx, Cramlington, Near Newcastle, England
Forwarding Service: jderrick@xxxxxxx
Beyond the Horizon of the place we lived when we were young,
In a World of Magnets and Miracles. Pink Floyd.

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