The Elderly Gentleman's Club or Old Farts

[Jim Doolittle]

I'm too old to remember when I started using HomeSeer

Was it almost 23,000 posts ago?

[Jim Doolittle]

Erm, me being a typical male forgot about the Ladies, sorry

"Old Farts and Fartesses Club"?

[dkindred]

Sign me up! Just like Thymer and Jon00, I automated by string, as a child. I loved being able to open and close my bedroom door that way. My younger sister was less impressed when I'd pull a string to slam a door in her face. Hee hee hee.

I've been using X-10 products since 1995, and even went so far as to work for the Evil HAL company before I finally found a second grey cell to use in my head.

Madge, I'm sure we'd all love to have gals in the group, but aren't you FAR too young?

Alas, I have just recently reached Jack Benny's "age". If anyone understands that reference, you're older than me!

--David

[Rick Tinker]

Yep - I remember my father being at the Jack Benny age for 10 years or so... Of course, I am too young to know the originator of it and David surely knows - good thing I'm not that old.

I too spliced into light and TV power cords so I could have toggle switches mounted on the desk next to my bed when I was in middle school! It was a good life, turning off the TV just as my parents suspected I was not asleep and were about to open the door to check on me... The bad side of this was waking up suddenly to my alarm clock and being disoriented to the point where after trying to turn it off, I suddenly found every light in the room turned on and the TV starting to come on.

When I lived in the Chicago area, late '80s/early 90's, I went to a sale at a big department store and found on a clearance table a small home automation kit consisting of the original brown BSR plug-in X-10 modules. By the time I moved to the Atlanta area, I already had the bug bad and planned everything for the new house - I went to the actual headquarters for the orignal HAL (Home Automation Labs) and picked up my copy of Dynasty (ECS) and a Dynaface (Applied Digital Micro Redac - predecessor to the Adicon products) and of course the "Big Mouth" telephone board for the computer... The rest, as they say, is history!

Gogs - have not read your email yet - actually found this while searching for something else. Not sure how easy it is to add a moniker to somebody's avatar by their home automation date, but I will try to look into it.

[Guest]

I still have BSR X10 appliance module that my father bought from one of the first Sharper Image catalogs, and then gave to me because the controller was not reliable enough (ultra-sonic, not RF).

1977 or 78 I think.

Alan

[Rupp]

It has to be in the genes! This is why others look at us like we have 2 heads when we get excited describing how we know the mail has arrived. They just do not get it. Heck why wouldn't you want the "lady in the walls" telling you - "You have mail", "Eric it's time to gather the garbage", or "This is CNN". I don't get them. From reading it appears that all of us started at a very young age with our first automation endeavors. My first "big" automation project was mounting the cable TV box (pre-remote control had a knob to tune the channels) on the side of my bed and using one of these "plastic squeeze-things" to turn on the TV (pre-remote). This "plastic squeeze-things" made a high pitched sound and activated the a power supply. Pre-clapper I guess. It was really cool when I found out you could rattles keys and it would activate as well.

[dkindred]

Ha! It's so true. My cell phone vibrates all the time, and I look to see who just called my house, or I see a notification that the water heater temperature has dipped below 90 degrees, or what have you. My co-workers all look at me like I'm nuts, but these same people think it's so cool when they're over and hear the talking Caller-ID, or get a custom phone greeting when they call. Most shake their heads at the thought of having pressure gauges under the kitchen floor, a security camera in the porch light, a weather station on the roof, etc. But, I think they're about ready to hear about anything when the first thing they see when entering the house is a working 1940s mahogany phone booth.

Just want to clarify on my buddy Tink's post. The HAL he is talking about (Home Automation Labs) was run by Barclay Brown and is completely unrelated to the evil HAL (Home Automated Living), where we both served (seemingly life) sentences.

Tinkles, have you been listening to "the wireless" lately? I hear that Bob Hope is a stitch!

--David

[GreenAcres]

Sign me up as well.

Thanks

Thom

[mwhistle]

I'm sure we'd all love to have gals in the group, but aren't you FAR too young?

Now that's an experienced ladies' man talking!

The covered wagon avatars are more flattering than "Old Farts and Fartresses," don't you think?

[thymer]

Now that's an experienced ladies' man talking!

that was pretty smooth!

[jackpod]

I just recently trashed my old BSR controller that had the software on a 5" floppy, so I guess count me in. I don't remember the year but at the time it was state of the art.

[Bill Brower]

Crud, I just remembered I started in HA in 1980.

I had a rotary dimmer switch in my bedroom my freshman year in HS.

I bonded something like a hair spray cap to it.

Below that was a motor/pulley ran by a rubber band.

DPDT switch by the bed and that was my first remote dimmer switch.

Thanks for the memories Gogs,
Bill

[thymer]

You know, I'm starting to see a pattern here. Seems we all started this as kids. hmmm, perhaps it's genetic!

[GARYAUTOHO]

Mid 50's As Well

Had Automated House In 1955
Used Stepper Relay's From Pin Ball Machines
Used X10 When "bsr" Started It
Don't Get Me Started
Gary

[Rick Tinker]

HS Pioneers

Gang,

In the spirit of solidarity (e.g. in banding together against the young 'uns) I have created a new custom user group called HA Pioneer. If you want to join (anybody is allowed, even if a young 'un wants to claim the elite status) you simply go to your User CP (Control Panel) here, then click "Group Memberships" then click join on the HA Pioneer group.

This will add the covered wagon icon to your posts, but not right away... Seems that when you are a member of more than one group, I have to go to the board administration and set the one to use for your display. Thus, this is a hassle, and I may drop it altogether if it is too much of a pain, but let's see how it goes. Once you have joined the group, drop me an email and let me know so I can change your display status. My email is in my profile and be SURE to let me know what your message board logon name is so I don't have to guess at it!

I have someone looking into creating a better icon/image, but the covered wagon should work for the interim.