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Issue #196 November 2006
In Search of the Real Thing
by Steve Ciarcia
I had an interesting experience recently that I thought I should tell you about because it deals with a specific product and the ordeal I had finding it. Let me explain.
About two months ago, I installed a HomeVision-Pro home control system (www.csi3.com/homevis2.htm). It has a rather nice PC-based GUI for programming, but all report generation and event logging is done via an integral NTSC video display with an IR remote and a couple auxiliary serial ports. There was a web-based GUI and Ethernet interface for network communication (by a third-party supplier), so I felt my goal of remotely viewing and controlling the HCS could be achieved. Unfortunately, my experience thus far is that it would be easier to build a Star Trek matter transporter than get this “glued-on” web interface working. (In truth, my difficulties may be my ISP-supplied, non-user-programmable router and not them.) So, back to the drawing board to create a few “glue-ons” of my own.
Ultimately, remote real-time control was actually easier to do than I thought it would be. Because I have an extensive web-based video-monitoring system already installed, I simply attached the HV-Pro video and IR remote inputs to a commercial Sling Media Slingbox. It’s not rocket science, but it works. The Slingbox thinks it’s talking to an IR-controlled DVD player, but who cares? ;-)
Viewing the event log seemed like it should be even less complicated. I would simply dump the HCS event log out one of the serial ports and send it to a “dumb terminal” with an NTSC video display. Then I’d connect this video output to one channel on an Aruca Electronics video web server (www.arucaelectronics.com/shop/ipvideoserver.php) and look at it like any other video camera. Simple, huh?
After spending a couple hours on Google looking for things like “serial terminal,” “RS-232 serial terminal,” and “serial display,” I concluded that I was in trouble. I found some small expensive hand-held test devices, lots of LCDs, and software emulations, but the conclusion was that the terminal world was now either Linux-based hardware or PC HyperTerminal variants. Forget any traditional hardware like a “dumb terminal” that used NTSC. Like the RS-232 serial port connector on my laptop, it had apparently gone the way of the Pentium II.
I was really frustrated at this point. Someone had to make a serial terminal with an NTSC video output, so it was back to the Internet where I spent an entire evening on Google. I think it was under “NTSC serial terminal” on page 36 of the search results that I finally came across Decade Engineering (www.decadenet.com). The irony is that Decade Engineering is a Circuit Cellar advertiser!!!
Well, I’m happy to say that the BOB-4 module is the best thing since sliced bread. I appreciate the product and it works great. But, there could be a bigger problem here. Decade advertised BOB-4 under my nose in my own magazine, and I didn’t recognize what they were selling. Because I think of myself as a Circuit Cellar reader, I wonder if there are a bunch of other readers who are equally in the dark.
Basically, it’s semantics. A butcher or grocery store can put up a big sign saying “Sliced Animal Products” or one that says “Beef Steaks.” Obviously, there is a very large audience that understands that sliced animal products really means steaks. Or, momentum and brand recognition in a particular audience is such that it wouldn’t matter what the sign said. People know to go to this butcher or grocer.
Many readers buy our magazine specifically for the ninth-page ads because it is like a catalog. Like most readers, I scan the ads and good ones catch my eye. The problem is whether the advertising language is so specific to one audience that it isn’t immediately understood in a different audience. I specifically remember the Decade ad being about some “Basic Overlay Board.” I’m embarrassed to say that I was so intent on solving my engineering problem that I perhaps focused too much on my own search nomenclature. I needed a serial terminal with NTSC.
In retrospect, I think that “Basic Overlay Board” led me in the wrong direction. Yes, I know what overlaying one NTSC video signal onto another is about, but an ad titled “BOB-4” didn’t ring enough bells where I immediately understood that “BOB” really should be translated “serial ASCII video terminal.” Yeah, I know. If I had studied the ad and put “video display generator” together with “SPI or RS-232 interface,” I might have had a better shot. Too bad all of us don’t have the time to study every ad in detail, but I didn't find it because I was on a search mission using my language and my nomenclature.
This all makes me wonder if we have any other advertisers who need to think about their advertising language. Our PC-obsessed world has left behind entire generations of industrial products in a twilight zone where PC simulations are the product of the day and it could be 35 search pages before anyone gets to your listing. These days, it may actually take special emphasis in an advertising message if you want people to know that you are still making the real thing. It sure would have made my life easier.
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