The obvious question I can come up with right away is
 "How much are you willing to pay for something like this?"
 I'm sure it can be done, but until the power companies or
 such figure a way to make a buck from it, you probably won't
 see it.   Am I cynical?  Yes, I guess I probably am.  I have
 seen so many good ideas put to use making rich people richer
 and poor or lower class people cannot benefit from them or
 can't afford to benefit from them, that I'm against a lot of
 things now that I would have been for a few years ago.  It's
 not so much the idea of making a buck off an idea, it's the
 prices that are charged.  Most of the time they are outrageous.
 Okay, I'll go away now.  I've said my piece.  Good luck on
 getting this information encoded on the power grid at a cost you
 can afford.

                                          Regards,

                                            Jim





On Mon, 14 February 2000, "Moser, Carl Woodrow, JR (Carl)" wrote:

>
> I recently purchased a Sony VCR -- the manual stated that the VCR would
> automatically set its clock when powered on.  Could be some time signal sent
> over cable or satellite.  Be nice if our government mandated that time
> signals along with other information be encoded on our Power Grid so that
> any device that plugs into 120vac could capture that information.  How about
> time signals, weather information, news headlines, currency translations,
> stock pricing, etc?
>
>
>
>
>
> > ----------
> > From:         Giles L. Honeycutt[SMTP:giles@AETRIUM-FSA.COM]
> > Reply To:     pic microcontroller discussion list
> > Sent:         Monday, February 14, 2000 3:02 PM
> > To:   PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> > Subject:      Re: Internet Toaster
> >
> > Well, do you need to do it?  Can a low power RTC work if it lasts
> > for 10 years?  Set it on assembly of product.
> > Just an idea, I don't know the constraints of the project.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Giles
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: pic microcontroller discussion list
> > [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Lance Allen
> > Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2000 2:27 PM
> > To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> > Subject: Re: Internet Toaster
> >
> >
> > >
> > > I'm asked to incorporate some kind of module that communicates with an
> > > external time standard (WWV, GPS, atomic time, whatever) that programs
> > the
> > > clock on appliances  (coffeemakers especially.)  You plug it in, it
> > knows
> > > what time it is.  Simple.
> > >
> > >
> > > Not for me.  Anybody heard of these little modules?
> > >
> > > -- Lawrence Lile
> >
> > I think that the only practical way with present technology is to
> > have a through-the-AC-mains comms that each appliance listens to
> > with a master unit that publishes the time.
> > The master unit can either be a GPS, Radio time receiver or
> > whatever.
> > So each house/facility has one of these master units and the
> > appliances that need to know the time have cheap little decode
> > units in them. That way you can control cross coupling of the
> > superimposed HF in household mains circuits relatively easily,
> > often not needing any coupling at all.
> > You could even consider the dreaded X10.
> >
> >
> > _____________________________
> >
> > Lance Allen
> > Technical Officer
> > Uni of Auckland
> > Psych Dept
> > New Zealand
> >
> > www.psych.auckland.ac.nz
> >
> > _____________________________
> >

jim@jpes.com