I wasn't the person you are talking about, but I have interfaced things to
my PC. The easy solution is to use the printer port - assuming its spare -
to control simple devices. The electronics for doing this is pretty simple.
The only downside with this apporach is that you can fry your computer if
you get it wrong.
A 'safer' way would be to interface your computer to a microcontroller via
serial port, and have the microcontroller deal with the switching of high
current loads. This means if you screw up only the microcontroller gets
fried, rather than your expensive computer. You can get a neat little
microcontroller from dick smith for $150.
This approach also gives you the advantage of not having to have your
computer on all the time. You can program the micro to do quite complex
programs - and not even need to talk to your computer. The micro I'm
thinking of is the Basic Stamp 2, which I have been using for over a year in
small robotic projects.
There are much cheaper micro's, but they require expensive programmers, and
are harder to program. The BS2 is hooked directly to your serial port, uses
easy to learn Token Based Basic, and is pretty robust (I havn't broken mine
yet dispite mistreating it quite a bit).
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Coulter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, May 21, 1999 8:02 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list offtopic
Subject: [DUG-OFFTOPIC]: Controlling external devices from PC
Hi all.
Well a hell of a long time ago, someone on the DUG put up a URL to a page
they had which was from memory on their machine at home, and they were able
to turn on their electric blanket etc. from there....via a device they had
connected to their machine.
They very kindly sent me a sketch of the layout of the devies PCB etc.(the
schematic) BUT I seem to have lost it, and am interested in getting hold of
it again.....
If that was you, can you contact me about it ???
Thanks,
Jeremy Coulter (chief software engineer)
Visual Software Solutions
Christchurch, New Zealand
PH 03-3521595
FAX 03-3521596
MOBILE 021-2150435
www.vss.co.nz
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