Hi Andrew

I'm a home automation and 8051 programming hobbyist. My very first 8051 project was a home alarm system that includes X10 communications. My project interfaces to the power line using the TW-523 two-way interface, so the alarm system can both transmit and receive X10.

One of my latest home automation projects is a unit that accepts commands from a serial port, and I added the ability to accept these commands via a 802.11b tablet PC by using a Lantronix EPS1 print server. By having the tablet PC's application telnet to port 3001 on the EPS1, I have a clean, two-way binary path between the tablet PC and the print server's serial port without needing to bother with an IP stack on the 8051 (actually, an 8751) itself. I picked up a number of these print servers for 5$ apiece on ebay!