The old days

Joe W

Member
After the CP290 1-way interface, I bought the TW523 from Harper-Baran, this HA guy in Cananda. He had a software product called HC2000. (I think I still have the original diskette somewhere.) Anyhow, I used that combo for well over two years. He eventually stopped supporting it. I think the programmer he had contracte with graduated from school and got a real job.

Interestingly enough, it had a TW523 driver. I heard that the TW523 is very difficult to program for, especially in Windows.

Anyone ever use it?

OOPS, I mis-posted this in the Home Security Software section, I thought I was in the HA Software section. Can the moderator please move this to that section please?
 
I never got the chance to get into home automation back in the old days, but I can only imagine how difficult things were back then, it's pretty impressive to see how long X10 has been around, and so far no other protocol has taken its place.
 
I remember Baran-Harper Group and did some business with them years ago. I remember their TW-523 drivers, but as I recall this was in the DOS days before Windows.

Anybody remember the PLIX chip from Circuit Cellar magazine & Micromint around 1992? It was an "intelligent communications interface" that converted RS-232 serial to the TW-523 timing requirements. I built the kit & played with one, but never used it extensively.
 
Ed Cheung was a frequent contributer to the Comuserve Automation message board. He was a NASA engineer, I think. He used some of that stuff from the Circuit Celler days. He also was active on the HA newsgroup. He build a hum-less ceiling fan controller for x10.

He still has a web site but I can't find it. It would be interesting to see what he's done lately.

Update: checked the home automation index and found his site. http://www.edcheung.com/
 
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