[Coco] further adventures with plug'n'power/x10

[John W. Linville]

On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 01:14:29PM -0400, Aaron Wolfe wrote:
> Is it possible that the two different PnP controllers (small grey one
> vs larger light or white one with buttons) need different signals from
> the cassette port?

Funny you should ask that -- I was wondering the same thing.

FWIW, I found a series of Rainbow articles (Feb, April, June,
and Aug of 1983) that describe how to talk to a PnP controller.
The interface is rather simple, requiring a lot of X10 protocol
knowledge to actually use it effectively.  No mention is made in those
articles of downloading any sort of schedule or other configuration
that must be necessary for the autonomouse use that the later PnP
controller for the CoCo can support.

Curious, I opened the white controller I have readily available.
It contains a circuit board with (among other stuff) an 8048
microcontoller and a 6116 RAM.  This confirms (at least to me) that
there must be more to the story for this version of the PnP controller.

Somewhere I think I have the earlier PnP controller as well.  If I
can locate it in my pile, I'll open it up to confirm the difference.

In any case, I wonder if anyone can provide a reference on how to
access the more advanced capabilities (i.e. scheduling for off-line
operation) available in the later version of the PnP controller?

John
-- 
John W. Linville		Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville at tuxdriver.com			might be all we have.  Be ready.