Controling Holiday Lights

["ANDREW GREGORY" <4pyros@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

  I have used X-10 to turn my holiday lights on and off for years mainly
because we have so many lights. We put on a good show for Halloween and
right after I start putting up 27,000 Christmas lights. I have been
increasing the complexity of our display every year with some animations and
flashing lights but it is vary difficult and time consuming using Activehome
and the X-10 hardware. I would like to take it to the next level this year
but can not find any good X-10 software to use.
  I have been looking at the software offerings and am having a hard time
finding something to help me to the next level. I have looked at allot of
the free stuff and found most can not be programmed faster than 1 sec. not
fast enough for sequencing dancing lights and still time consuming to
program. Looking at allot of the paid programs I can not determine if it
will help without buying them all.
  I am looking for a X-10 control program that is easy to program sequences
down to a tenth of a second to do some dancing lights in my 45 foot
charismas tree this year. Can anybody tell me if the software they are using
mite be able to help  or should I scrap the hole idea and us some thing like
Weed Techs digital I/O board and hope to find some good control software for
it to do dancing lights.
  The ultimate for me would be a program that would run off an excel spread
sheet where if a box is filled to would turn on an output and stay on if
more boxes where filled and then off at the next clear box running over
time.
  I have seen all the ready made charismas light hardware and software but I
do not have the time or money to go that route and was hoping to save some
of my investment in X-10 that has served me well all these years leading up
to this point.

  Thanks Andy