[Coco] Some thoughts on the X10 (Plug 'n Power)

[K. Pruitt]

I've been playing around with the Plug 'n Power module a lot of late trying
to figure out how to interface with this thing on a Coco 3 (Christopher
Hawks is obviously a highly skilled Ninja warrior for figuring out how to
program this thing) and while looking for info I came across a little X10
device called a "firecracker".  The firecracker sends out wireless signals
which are picked up by a X10 transceiver which then passes
the signal down the home wiring which in turn tells the modules what to do.

Some definite pluses for this device are:

The firecracker plugs in to a standard 9-pin serial port while at the same
time allowing pass-though capabilities for another device plugged in to the
same serial port.

The protocol for the  firecracker is very simple and well documented.

It could easily be plugged in to a drivewire cable either hooked to a PC or
not.

They are extremely inexpensive.

I have to get myself a wireless transceiver to fully test this thing out but
this may be a very real alternative to the RS Plug 'n Power module.   I'll
keep ya'll updated on this if my experiments yield any useful results.