max@eros.UUCP (10/28/87)
In article <1324@atkins.munsell.UUCP> klm@atkins.UUCP (Kevin McBride) writes: >[Byte magazine] described how you could interface your >home brew remote control box to your personal computer and have everything >run by software. This is not on the subject of optical remote controls but rather on computer-controlled home equipment, for which an extensive standard already exists. For several years, NV Philips has had the Domestic Data Bus (DDB), for appliances with intelligence to talk to one another. The public has not heard much about it (but then the public had not heard much about 12-cm digital audio discs in 1980 either). My understanding is that the DDB is waiting in the wings until microprocessors are more common and it becomes convenient to network them. I have visions of the TV running the washing machine when the latter experiences soft errors, and so forth. Since I have expanded the distribution of this article, I hope that someone at PRL Eindhoven or PRLS or Briarcliff Manor might see this and be able to post some hard information about the Philips DDB. Max Hauser / max@eros.berkeley.edu / ...{!decvax}!ucbvax!eros!max