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[bobmcl]

Read the latest update before proceeding

Upgraded to a new pc. My CP290 works fine so I came up with a workaround for XP Pro. I copied all the files from the old pc and set them up in a folder called "X-10" under program files. Setup.exe works fine. Before going farther, go to the device manager and open the COM port  that the CP290 uses. The "Port Settings" should be defaulted. Under "Advanced" check "Use FIFO buffers". Set the receive and transmit buffers to ONE, the lowest setting.(( Un-checking FIFO buffers also works for both my low tech serial devices. I found out that restarts are a must after changing port settings even though it acts like changes are occurring.(Using maximum FIFO buffers on the WIN 98 PC worked?)).  Restart the PC. Executing the program gives the error "Check interface connections"etc. Want to try again? Hit "Y"  twice or more, rapidly. "Error reading time" appears. Hit ESC. The interface appears. It may or may not be your working file.  In the "files" window should be your old working file. Hit F8, then F2 and load your file. (The interface switches were dead before I discovered the loading routine!!) All of my modules appeared, but the timer settings were gone. That may have happened with all the experimentation I did. After reloading the timer settings, go to F8, then F3 and save the settings to the same file name.
Hitting the "Y" twice and the ESC starts the program everytime. I usually only go in there for the twice yearly time changes. I also use a shortcut on my desktop to open the program.
   April 12 2006,Somethings I just noticed: The interface displays the time from the XP PC. I don't remember that happening on the old. As I have to skip over the day and time setting I am not sure if I can choose a specific day of the week for a timer event. Something I did disabled the on-off buttons on the interface again. The load program fix mention here does not work now?? Pulling the battery and starting over does not fix it. I am about ready for the CM-15, BUT when I read about the problems on this forum, I change my mind!

I am using the DOS Version 1.3 of Home Automation Software in a new Micron Client Pro 375 that has an integrated serial port.

  Update April 21, 2006: I got back to this science project and discovered:
1) Even though I can access the interface, I cannot set the date or time from the XP machine.
2) The interface displays the clock time of the XP machine, but does not use it for timing. It uses the time from the old PC.
3) I can add modules and events on the XP machine.
4) When starting the interface the timer events don't always appear on the review.(That happened on the old machine, but restarting fixed it.) Restarting does not fix it now.
5) I think I'll keep the old PC just to run the X-10, as I am only running lights and appliances. 

When I read the posts under this, and all the headaches with the new stuff posted here and else where, I am determined to keep this thing til it goes dead.

[Charles Sullivan]

It might help to mention what software you're using - the old DOS program or Lighthouse or something else?

[steven r]

I just ran across my old CP290 the other day. I was wondering what to do with the antique. 

[Dan Lawrence]

1. Doorstop.

2. dust collector.

I went to Active Home and the CM11A when my 290 started loosing addresses. Under the 290, A5 was the address of the bedroom until it stopped recognizing A5 and the bedroom was moved to A6. When the 290 lost another address (A1) it was junked and replaced with the CM11A.  AH and the CM11A went away when the main box went to XP Home and the Com port problem under XP showed up.

[steven r]

1. Doorstop.
2. dust collector.

It does have a bit of dust on it. 

[TakeTheActive]

I just ran across my old CP290 the other day. I was wondering what to do with the antique. 

DONATE it to a retired / semi-retired / disabled / handicapped / low-income X-10 Newbie who would use it on his Win9X PC w/56K Dial-up.

[Charles Sullivan]

Ah, the CP290 - I remember it well.  I was using it back in the mid-1980s to operate modules in response to speech commands on a 5 MHz PC.  To get enough speed out of the PC I created a bunch of small binary files with names like A1ON.BIN and  A1OFF.BIN using the info from the CP290 Programming Guide, and copied them to a RAMDISK (anyone remember them) at bootup.  Then the speech command engine issued commands like 'COPY A1ON.BIN COM1" when I said "Turn the TV on".

I thought the CP290 Lighthouse software was pretty good except for having to constantly reset manually the times of Dawn and Dusk during Spring and Fall when these times were changing rapidly, so I sprung for the CM11A soon after it was introduced.  But I absolutely HATED the ActiveHome software - I could hardly see anything on the 13 inch monitor I had at the time and had to print out the reports (on a slow dot matrix printer) to verify I had correctly programmed the uploaded timers and macros.

The break with ActiveHome came after I bought a larger hard drive and "Drive Copy" software to transfer my Windows partition to the new drive.  Everything worked fine - so it seemed - until several months later when it was time to update the downloaded schedule
in the CM11A and ActiveHome just wouldn't work.  An X-10 Support Tech spent about 45 minutes on the phone with me but to no avail.
Panic!!!  I got an email a few months after that from an X-10 Tech asking me to try a new release of ActiveHome, and it worked, but by then it was too late - I had in desperation started using a simple Linux program named "Heyu" to program the CM11A and had gotten personally involved in enhancing it (you can do that in Linux) to get the features I wanted.  Th rest is history.  (It was probably the debacle with ActiveHome which drove me to use Linux as my primary operating system - thanks, X-10.)

Anyone running Linux, Unix, or Mac OS X is invited to try Heyu (it's free) to operate their old CM11A without hassle.  See http://www.heyu.org