The DoT

I've had this silly idea stuck in my head for the last day or so, and I figured I might as well share it in case anybody else gets a chuckle out of it. Or even takes it seriously, for that matter. There's been a lot of buzz lately about the Internet of Things (IoT). I don't personally care about connecting my thermostat or clothes dryer to the Internet, but if something that's like X10 remote control but without the sucking comes out of this, then maybe it's worth the effort. That's all fine and good, but what if you want to control and monitor your environment with a classic machine like my VAX-11/730? That VAX doesn't know anything about JSON, XML, XMPP or such similar new-fangled protocols, but it does know how to talk to remote hardware. And thus, I present my silly idea: The DECNET of Things! I envision it looking something like this at the console: $ SET HOST STEREO $ SET VOLUME 15 $ LOGOUT $ SET HOST LAMP07 $ SET DIMMER 07 $ LOGOUT Perhaps the most counter-intuitive aspect of this silly idea is that I came up with it without the benefit of any mind-altering substances. So, when do you suppose I'll be able to buy embeddable DoT modules at SparkFun? :) -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net> http://www.nf6x.net/