[tech] Serial Port Games: Smoke Detectors.

[Leighton Haynes]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2001 at 03:16:49PM +0800, Duncan Sargeant wrote:
> James Bromberger wrote on Mon April 30, at 13:34 +0800:
> > On Mon, Apr 30, 2001 at 11:25:06AM +0800, Mark Tearle wrote:
> > > > 	Smoke Detector connected to a standard Serial port (or, for that
> > > > matter, a multi port blackbox like door). Daemon monitors port(s) and waits
> > > > for a signal(s). On alarm, raises alert by some means, possibly smssend,
> > > > possibly email (to several email addresses, at least one of which
> > > > should probably be remote!), possibly by picking up a modem on a different
> > > > port and sending SMS SOS!
> 
> If your smoke detector doesn't speak RS232, you might want to use your
> parallel port instead, or build a circuit to output a continues stream
> of bytes on your serial line if the smoke detector output is high.  I
> don't know how PC's deal with non-RS232 input.

Most UPSes I've played with don't actually talk RS232 - they just pull pins
high or low as they feel fit ;) It seems to work ok.

Leighton...

--

Part-time student. Full-time Programmer. 
Seeking the 36 hour day and the 10 hour working week.
(08) 9272 9058 (Home - like I'm ever there)