[NBLUG/talk] Setting up X-10 home automation

[Lincoln Peters]

I've looked at Smarthome.com and X10.com; I haven't checked HSC, but I'm 
pretty sure I haven't seen this kind of stuff there).  I checked Radio Shack 
and Sears, as they were rumored to have X-10 hardware (there was a discussion 
of X-10 at a meeting of the North Coast Macintosh Users Group several months 
ago), and I found pretty much everything EXCEPT computer interfaces at Radio 
Shack, and I found absolutely nothing at Sears, online or in the store.  For 
obvious reasons, I have not purchased any X-10 hardware yet.


I do see one possible problem with using any of these computer interfaces in 
my existing setup: as far as I can tell, all of them use a legacy serial 
port, and the computer I'd like to use to control everything only has one 
serial port, and it's currently connected to a Palm HotSync cradle.  This 
means that I'd need to do one of three things:

1. Switch to a USB Palm HotSync cradle (I have one in my garage, but I never 
got it to work on Linux).
2. Find a USB computer interface (and a Linux program that can interact with 
it).
3. Get a USB-to-Serial adapter (probably the easiest solution).


And so the plot thickens...


-- 
Lincoln Peters
<sampln at sbcglobal.net>

A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything,
should conceal it as well as she can.
		-- Jane Austen