Circuit Cellar Home Control System II History

Note: - currently the following history is loosely based on my memory of events. Some investigation is needed to verify dates, events and their order of occurrence.

• January, 1980 "Computerize a Home" by Steve Ciarcia Byte, January 1980, page 28 Notes: An overview of the X-10 system is presented, along with some photos and block diagrams of the commercial system. Special attention is given to the ultrasonic command wand which communicates with the base station and can control any of the units under the house code that the base station is set to. One suggestion is presented that uses a pair of CMOS MUX chips to simulate matrix closures in the control keypad. This approach is discouraged. Steve then goes on to describe an interface that takes commands from a parallel port and sends them ultrasonically to the X-10 box. $80, plus cable, interface, and power.
• April, 1985 A set of articles from Byte Magazine, April, May, and June 1985, Steve Ciarcia put together the details of his "Home Run Control System". A system based on the Motorola 6801 uController.

• February, 1992 In an article (pdf) from Circuit Cellar magazine, Issue #25, Steve introduces us to the HCS II (Warning: the story is very funny :-). While in the same issue, in an article (pdf) written by Ken Davidson, we get introduced to the Supervisory Control (SC). This is the brains of the HCS. The network protocol and many of the modules were documented in other articles (see the PDF index list for the entire list). A very good example of Open Source at it's best. Not only is the information shared, it's also documented. Back issues of Circuit Cellar magazine are available on CD or paper.
• May 1999 - Mike Baptiste takes control of sales and support for the entire HCS II line.
• Mike introduces the Answer MAN Jr., PIC-TV, PIC-LCD, PIC-DIO, Mini-DIO and Mini-Link modules.
• Mike starts looking into using the Rabbit 2000 for the HCS III and starts a number of Open Source projects related to the HCS II.
• Dot.Com Bomb, economy goes to hell in a hand bucket. Mike is forced to close up shop.
• July, 2001 In July 2001 the users of the HCS decided to create our own support for the HCS II. With Steve's approval we disassemble the 3.62 ROM code, select the GPL as the software license and get the source code to the compiler and DOS GUI interface software. We also open the Open Source HCS II Web pages on Sourceforge.
• Mike lends a hand by releasing his modules (the Mini-Links et al) source code under the GPL! He also supplies all the rom image files and a lot more source code that was missing from the files Steve gave us.
• Discussion on the next generation HCS begins and Robert Morrison designs and builds a prototype based on the Zilog Z380 (HCS II.V). No sooner than he has it done does Zilog put the Z380 on EOL. Also Zilog file Chapter 11? (reorganization). Further discussions on the next generation HCS continue.
• Robert begins again, starting with the Rabbit (HCS_R or HCS III, which we find too limiting) and then settles on the Atmel ARM 7 chip. He designs a board (posted to his web site) using the Atmel and a FPGA chip. This is our current SC design.
• September, 2003 Because of limited resources (people, time and money) the ECOS OS is selected to be the OS for the HCS_C. Currently the RTL8019 based packet whacker will be used as a prototype network interface. Later we'd like to switch to the AX88976 based packet whacker (not yet available) for the the prototype of the network interface daughter board.

History - In an article from Byte Magazine, April 1985, Steve Ciarcia put together the details of his "Home Run Control System". In 1992, in an article (pdf) from Circuit Cellar magazine, Issue #25, Steve introduces us to the HCS II (Warning: the story is very funny :-). While in the same issue, in an article (pdf) written by Ken Davidson, we get introduced to the Supervisory Control (SC). This is the brains of the HCS. The network protocol and many of the modules were documented in other articles (see the PDF index list for the entire list). A very good example of Open Source at it's best. Not only is the information shared, it's also documented. Back issues of Circuit Cellar magazine are available on CD or paper. In July 2001 the users of the HCS decided to create our own support for the HCS II. With Steve's approval here is what we are creating.

The future board, for now called the HCS_C is based on the ATMEL AT91R40008. Further details can be found at Zeta Engineering. Zeta is also working on a few other interesting things not directly related to the HCS project.

The project is broken down into 6 parts:

• HCS Supervisory Controller (SC, the main processor) Hardware and Firmware
• HCS SC expansion cards (boards that stack on the SC)
• XPRESS compiler (DOS/Windows/Linux command line compiler)
• Host and other User interface programs (Currently just DOS)
• HCS network modules (RS485, comm-links which handle most of the I/O)
• Interface projects (Windows, Linux and other systems)

For further info email me at: ncherry@users.sourceforge.net.