relaycard for amiga

[amyren]

There is a home automation program that enables the Amiga to communicate into the X10 protocol. Sadly it havent been developed for a long time, and the program is hard to find as well.
But it is a great idea, and far better in my opinion than a relay card. This way you can controll anything, everywhere in your house. This is because the control signals are sent via the powerlines that you already have in your house.

The program is named EZHome. This is written to connect to a CM11A controller. This controller will open access to a whole range of controllable equipment. Just have a look at x10.com. Also there is a program that can be found on aminet, named 3DHome. This is a graphical interface to works together with EZHome. There is also a timer program named EZCron.

Here is a link to an interesting article written on this subject. There is also some screenshots of the program:
http://www.hometoys.com/htinews/aug98/reviews/hines/AmigaHA.html

In the article there is also described a few other x10 related amiga programs that is on aminet, CyberX10 and X10Commander. These can communicate with the CP290 controller.
The difference between tha CP290 and the CM11A is that CP290 can transfer the X10 commands from the computer and send them to the x10 equipment. And the CM11A is able to have a two way communication, and also receive x10 commands. But for many cases I think the CP290 will be sufficant.

I also got some hits where this thing is mentioned on this forum:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-45754.html
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=28165

Edit: I also found a utility on aminet to use with CM11A controllers, file named X10CM11A.lzh
This is a command line tool that also is able to send commands to dim lamps etc. But looks like its no GUI for it yet.

[amyren]

I also sent email to author Jim Hines long time ago, but sadly that email adress found on that webpage does not exist anymore. Hope you have better luck in finding him.

But I also sent email today to one of his co-developers named in the article, Gene Haskel. Hope he is able to reply. I will give feedback here.

[amyren]

I know that the C64 isn't an option but wasn't there an attachment you could wire up the 64 to the mains and it will switch off and on lights, as to imitate someone in your home?

I wasnt aware of that, but you are right

A quick google search provided this picture of the device:
http://www.loafbread.com/ie/images/c64x10ttcontrol/Pages/3.html

Also this webpage does mention a C64 X10 system. The article is atari related, but it does mention C64 and the "X-10 PowerHouse home controller system".
http://www.atarimagazines.com/v7n4/powermanager.html

[amyren]

X10 would certainly seem to fit the bill, as they have volt free input and output relay modules, as well as the more common appliance and dimmer modules. Let us know if you find the Amiga software; I'm particularly interested as it is another of my hobbies, and I am  the moderator of two UK home automation forums.

For basic needs, I guess that all the software you need is already available, as I mentioned in an earlier post the CM11A can be controlled by a commandline utility found on aminet. The CM11 adaptor is available to buy in two versions, with USB or serial interface. For the amiga, the serial version will be the choice.

Then you can controll it from shell, or you can write small scripts. One script to turn off lamp 1, another script to turn on lamp 2 and so on.
Best thing would be to have a nice GUI to use, but if thats not available you could use one of the docking programs available. Customize it to run your scripts, and you suddenly have a small GUI with lots of buttons controlling your home X10 devices.

[amyren]

Well, guess what; I'm in touch with Jim and Gene right now. They are having a look, looks like Jim lost the software a while ago; but Gene probably still has it on tape somewhere. If they do find it I'll host it on my site!

Thats good news. If they cant find the software at all, you could ask them if it would be ok to publish the software if you find the software somewhere else. Its a good chance that some Amiga that did buy the software still have a copy available.

btw: Nice website, the amiga museum you have there. Also like the idea of the webshop for used amiga hardware. If just all unused or the amiga things that some even throw away was collected into one big webshop, it would give the amiga classic ever better "afterlife" possibilities.

[amyren]

I want to give turd a go,reasons: low budget realycard available software nice with a gui with all my needs.
Only no input but maybe I'll find another hardwareproject for input through another port.
But has anybody been able to register t.u.r.d lately?
The weblink is dead and I get no response from my email to his adress.
I want to buy a key from him.

I did a quick search and found a couple of parallel relay boards starting from £30 for a kit or £35 for the pre assambled ones. Have you found some cheaper ones available?

And how do you plan to get the temperature reading into the amiga, you need some sort of input device for this?

[amyren]

..I guess you ment to write conrad.nl (conrad.ml did not go anywhere)

[amyren]

btw: I havent tried t.u.r.d. Is it programmable so that you can set it to eg. if joystick left, then output 1 = on and so on? Does it have an arexx port?

Just thinking that it should be possible to use blitzbasicII to make a small program that does what you want. Not sure if there are a library made for controlling the paralell port.