Re: Flight of fantasy

["Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@xxxxxxx>]

>A simple, lightweight system, then ;-)
>
>Can I guess at 100bT Ethernet and TCP/IP?

Bang on, - I figured what's the value in running multiple speaker,
microphone, IR and who-knows-what else cables all over the house, just so
that you can send audio and IR signals all over the place? - Why move this
stuff around at all? - why not generate the audio or IR or whatever at the
point that is is needed? I guess vide "could" be done the same
way, (IE
digitised and streamed over the LAN), but there I'd suggest that was going
a
bit far, and it really would make sense to run a dedicated cable, - using
some of Keiths KAT5 modules of course!  ;-)

>
> >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
>

Thanks for those links, I'll have a look at them later, I don't claim to be
the first to have thought of doing it this way, in fact I'd be
flabbergasted
at such a suggestion! - it seems so obvious that I'm sure plenty of other
people must have thought of it before....


>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...
>

Agreed!

Paul G.

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