Video tour of 1985 home automation system

[John Ball]

>> I wanted to share this because it's pretty neat:
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BHIknNa6Eg
>>
>> It's a ~6 minute tour of a home automation system from the 1980s that
>> features graphical floor layouts and touch screen programming.  The
system
>> is built into the house.
>
>That screen looks so much like my HP 150 that I keep wondering if that?s
what they used >to build it.

The IR grid for simulating a touchscreen wasn't really HP exclusive. I got a
frame and control board here from Dale Electronics out of Nebraska from
probably the same time period that interfaces to anything that supports
RS-232.
I really am quite fond of the idea of some simple machine in your basement
with an X10 controller and a bunch of serial ports for terminals. Didn't
they phase out Minitel terminals in France and now a lot of them are
scattered about for pretty much free? Imagine having one of those puppies
with the fold-out keyboards built into the wall of every room in your house.
That interface looks like it would be easy to replicate with the extended
ASCII character set.
-John