This article was posted to the Usenet group alt.hackers in
1995; any technical information is probably outdated.
AV HAck
Article: 7355 of alt.hackers From: avax@tiac.net (Jay) Newsgroups: alt.hackers Subject: AV HAck Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 20:54:14 LOCAL Organization: The Internet Access Company Lines: 35 Approved: Trumpet for Windows [Version 1.0 Rev B final beta #4] Message-ID: avax.5.011CEF30@tiac.net NNTP-Posting-Host: avax.tiac.net Status: RO
Well here is my fisrt attempt to post a message on any news group. It might as well be a hack. OBhack: I wanted to add speech control to my condo. So I bought a speach recognition card for my PC. Next I purchased an IR remote with a serial interface. The interface was intened to be used for updating the firmware in the remote to keep it's library of codes current. I wrote a program that will send the hex codes that emulate strikingthe keys on the remote. I had speech card TSR make command line calls to the the IR program. It fired the remote which was pointed to a IR repeater transmitter that converted to RF. The receiver (positioned in a fashion that can see the TV and Stereo) converts back to IR and triggers the appliance to cange channels or whatever. I did the same thing only thru the printer port to send X-10 commands via a TC something or another adapter that plugs into the AC outlet. Now I have control over lights, fans, etc.. The problem was that you had to wear the headset. So I tried putting in an omni directional microphone to pick up the commands spoken from anywhere in theroom. The problem was during normal conversation that the computer would think it was getting commends and would start turning lights on and off, changing tv stations, etc... So the speech card had an optional foot switch to enable recognition. I bypassed the foot switch and replaced it with a keycain remote (like car alarms use) to enable recognition only when I wanted to issue a command.