Digital I/O

I don't know exactly what you want to do, but if it's home automation there are several places you can check. Do a search on your faviorate search engin for home automation.

Yes, the best way to control external hardware from a PC is with digital I/O modules.

There are numerous ways to do this. You can use internal I/O cards, USB devices, or serial I/O modules.

www.dataq.com has a variety of Digital I/O options that use the serial port.

A good site to get a lot of information is www.chipcenter.com

They have articles on building your own hardware and software.

Many of the firms in this market produce products for industrial use.
Keithly Metrobyte
Data I/O Corporation
National Instruments

Another option would be to use a Programmable Logic Controller that you program from the PC, then allow it to run on it's own.

Chas

Using a I/O card allows you to set up what you need with only programming. However if you want a low cost method and have some interest in builting some hardware you can use the parallel port of you computer as digital I/O. There are various places on the web that will give sample circuits. A book on the topic can be found at www.lvr.com and is called Parallel Port Complete.

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