Re: Re: coffee message

The interface could even be written in something like VisualBasic, C++ or even QuickBasic and compiled as a DOS exe. This would let you access the serial port and return the value of the sensor. If you want to be really flash, a serial output could be connected to a mains relay which could switch the coffee machine on from the computer!!!! "Erik H. Mathy" <erik@butlerandco.com> wrote in message news:001801c1873f$6e666be0$3700020a@erik_laptop... > > If you had some kind of temperature sensor on the coffee pot and this was > > connected to a machine running Apache+PHP and an interace program, the php > > page could use exec() to run the interface program say every 5 seconds to > > retrieve the temperature and if it was above say xo it could print "Coffee > > ready" in the browser window (or active desktop on Win). > > If it was a unix machine, it could send a messgae to all the networked > > terminals in the workgroup i.e. those associated with coffe machine 1. > > Actually, you bring up a good point. :) > > But, if he's stuck with Win2k on a CMB VIC20 he might want to consider > ditching IIS5 and going with something really small, like Xitami. He can run > the exec() through PHP as suggested with minimal memory/processor usage. > > I don't even want to consider the security aspects of a Win2K/IIS5 install > on a nuclear installation, though! :0 >