Old school HA

[swaggy]

Saw this on reddit:
http://m.imgur.com/a/Jb6jW

 

[Mr Spock]

We've come a long way baby.

 

[pete_c]

Interesting text relating to the Unity System.
 

My house has a working total home automation system including touchscreen..... from 1985

 

You get up, and suddenly, the lights all cut, everything is plunged into darkness. "Damn, a power outtage," you think, as you try to adjust to the darkness. But out of the corner of your eye, you realize... UNITY is on, the monitor's flickering CRT refresh rate pulsing in the dark, reflecting off of the wall opposite. You approach, the screen has no text. Perhaps, it's rebooting? you imagine, and you give the screen a poke.
Text prints itself to the screen.
"HELLO, MR. GARCIA. IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME?"

 


 

That is a unit called Unity.
I installed them in the early 80's in Louisiana. In fact, out company was featured on the cover of a national home automation magazine.
We had to take the blueprints from the homeowner and send them to California and have the HA company (Unity Systems, Inc) burn custom chips for the display to show the house on screen.
Installs (retrofits) started around $25,000 in 1985.
They were HUGE in the closet or utility room and large homes had to link two units together.
It controlled basically all the AC and electrical through Leviton and later X-10. One of the biggest selling points was single, round temperature sensors (usually above the light switch and painted the color of the room) in each room that the system used to open and close, motorized, percent closed/open inline dampers controlling airflow in the register ducts. You can see one in your first pic to the camera left of the touch screen.
It could use the security sensors as control reference points and motion detectors to determine of a room was being use.
Unity eventually made a smaller unit that was much more affordable, but no more reliable and eventually stopped selling altogether.
Im SHOCKED one is still running.