> Doesn't anybody think safety and or "isolatin
> of the line" from possible human contact anymore?
> That used to be a consideration (BUT with the
> declining cost of technology I fear safety has
> taken a back seat to features and bottom-line
> cost).

Rest assured that this is still required just as much as ever - at least in
this country where there are regulatory standards to meet, as I noted.
I assume that most other countries also haven't thrown away the rule book in
the face of the declining cost of technology - certainly the Telcos won't
have as the purpose of isolation is to protect both people from lines and
lines from people. The  latter is more important to the Telco's Ops manager
and the former to the Telco's lawyers.

As I noted, lest the point has somehow been missed, this was just a
discussion of the principles concerned - a starting point for someone to
learn something instead of just going down the road and buying an existing
technologically encheapend one for a fraction of the price of a
roll-your-own.

None of the techniques mentioned so far by any respondent actually *demands*
a
lack of 'isolatin of the line' - what one does in the privacy of one's own
breadboard and how this is implemented in a product are different. Safety
during development is, of course,  important but the final circuitry can
float in isolation from the real world if needs be.


        RM

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics
(like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics