[ale] computer controlled power switches

[cfowler at outpostsentinel.com (Christopher Fowler)]

On Thu, 2006-12-28 at 14:14 -0500, Christopher Fowler wrote:
> Make one and let me know if it works!
> 
> http://www.bolis.com/amillar/computers/hardware/serial-port-power-switch
> 

I emailed this before I read it :).  About 3 years ago we looked at a
similar idea to create a cheap one port power controller.  This design
is what we came up with.  The problem is that it requires DTR to be
active to turn on power.  This is great unless your PC is off.  If the
PC is off or rebooted then your device will be shut off.  We then
concluded that we needed some sort of processor to save state to that we
could tell the power control to turn off,on, or reboot the outlet.  It
would then need to save this state and keep it that way until we sent
another command.