Subject: From: Date:

RE: [ECS] Creating ECS interface to my Access Control System Garnet Bailey Sun, 22 Oct 2000 21:29:11 -0600

Sun, 22 Oct 2000 21:29:11 -0600

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Well, I for one am intriged by this. What is the system you bought?
Manufacturer / Model / etc. ??
Tell us more :-)

Garnet Bailey - <garnet.bailey@home.com> <4033301493@pcs.cantelatt.com>

  -----Original Message-----
  From: Kevin Trainor [mailto:kevin@thetrainors.com]
  Sent: October 21, 2000 4:18 PM
  To: ecs-list@netbloc.com
  Subject: [ECS] Creating ECS interface to my Access Control System


  I just bought an access control system for my house.  It controls electric
door strikes based upon inputs from proximity card readers.  I have been
bench testing the system before installing it and, so far, everthing has
gone well.

  What I want to do next is to interface this access control system with
ECS.  The access control system is programmed and controlled via a serial
port and terminal emulation using my PC.  The system has a character-based,
menu-driven application that I access by using HyperTerm to emulate a VT100
terminal.  What I would like to do is to replace the HyperTerm program with
a connection to ECS via a serial port.  Then, I would like ECS to querry the
access control system to get its status.  Further, I want ECS to be able to
issue menu commands that cause the access control system to ulock doors,
disable readers, etc.

  The big question:  How do I do this with ECS?  When I look at the ECS
Client/Server serial interface, it doesn't seem appropriate.  The stream of
ascii text that the access control system puts out over its serial port is
not structured for this kind of client/server dialog.  As an alternative, I
have considered using the ECS serial port interface that allows you to read
and write to the serial port a charcter at a time.  While this seems
promising, I think it would be a rather inelegant approach.

  Are there any other ways to do this?  Is it possible for me to define
another device type and write a driver for it?  Or, can this only be done by
Mark?

  Thanks in advance to everyone for their comments and suggestions.

  Kevin

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Garnet Bailey - <garnet.bailey@home.com> <4033301493@pcs.cantelatt.com>

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Trainor [mailto:kevin@thetrainors.com]
Sent: October 21, 2000 4:18 PM
To: ecs-list@netbloc.com
Subject: [ECS] Creating ECS interface to my Access Control System

I just bought an access control system for my house.  It controls electric door strikes based upon inputs from proximity card readers.  I have been bench testing the system before installing it and, so far, everthing has gone well.

 

What I want to do next is to interface this access control system with ECS.  The access control system is programmed and controlled via a serial port and terminal emulation using my PC.  The system has a character-based, menu-driven application that I access by using HyperTerm to emulate a VT100 terminal.  What I would like to do is to replace the HyperTerm program with a connection to ECS via a serial port.  Then, I would like ECS to querry the access control system to get its status.  Further, I want ECS to be able to issue menu commands that cause the access control system to ulock doors, disable readers, etc.

 

The big question:  How do I do this with ECS?  When I look at the ECS Client/Server serial interface, it doesn't seem appropriate.  The stream of ascii text that the access control system puts out over its serial port is not structured for this kind of client/server dialog.  As an alternative, I have considered using the ECS serial port interface that allows you to read and write to the serial port a charcter at a time.  While this seems promising, I think it would be a rather inelegant approach.

 

Are there any other ways to do this?  Is it possible for me to define another device type and write a driver for it?  Or, can this only be done by Mark?

 

Thanks in advance to everyone for their comments and suggestions.

 

Kevin

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