Re: Cause of some major X10 problems found

["bruceR" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Robert Green wrote:
> "Dave Houston" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>
>> The Marrick device used a TW523 and thus saw only the valid codes
>> that the TW523 could report. It would never see a code that
>> contained 111 (except for the startcode) or 000 sequences as the
>> TW523 would not report them.
>
> Maybe yours did (you are relating direct experience I assume) but
> mine came with a device that looked nothing like the TW523 or its X-
> 10 Pro version:
>
> http://www.marrickltd.com/_archive/lynx105.htm
>
> They explicitly stated the analysis software would not work with
> anything but their own controller. IIRC, it saw all the raw
> Manchester 1/0 bits on the powerline and then grouped them according
> to code content.  If you recall, I even sent a screen snapshot of the
> output showing the raw complement bits to you.
>
> There was a toggle key where you could see the 1/0 complement bits or
> collapse that view into the actual X-10 binary format.  Through the
> rather novel use of graphics on the line about the raw data they were
> able to then "group" bits that were valid into X-10 meaningful
> frames, indicating the cycle gap, single valid frames and entire
> valid commands.  It read in all the bits its buffer could hold and
> then processed them.  That's why I'm certain it would be useful in
> analyzing something like Bruce's very noisy power supply.
>
> I used it to analyze two Palmpads "colliding" and the Lynx showed
> pretty much what the Monterey did.   Lots of "almost" codes, some
> valid codes, some single frames and some valid commands that were on
> a house code that neither transceiver was set to.  I have all the
> screenprints somewhere, but I have little more than a passing
> interest in this subject and certainly not enough to go dig up the
> LynX-10 data.  I'm quite content to wait until Jeff has the noisy
> power supply in hand to see what's what.
>
> This discussion reminds me of astronomy where there are hard and fast
> theories about what can and can't be until new evidence arrives,
> usually through the use of better tools like space-based telescopes,
> large array telescopes and image processing.  The new and better
> evidence usually blows the old theories out of the water.
>
> Scientists once again had to rewrite the textbooks when a NASA's
> Stardust mission traveled almost 3 billion miles during a seven-year
> round-trip from Earth to Comet Wild-2 and back again.  The craft
> managed to snag some real comet material.  It turns out the
> composition was far different from what earth-based observations had
> predicted and the legend of the comet as a dirty snowball was pretty
> much put to rest.  That's why I'm more than willing to wait until
> Jeff actually has our "comet" in his hands and can observe its real-
> world behavior as opposed to theorizing how it should behave.

To that end I ordered a new charger for the phone and this one will be on
it's way to Jeff as soon as it comes in.