# X10 Home Automation



## balanga (Aug 8, 2017)

I was  was looking for something to show how to set up X10 Home Automation on FreeBSD and came across this:-
https://people.freebsd.org/~fsmp/HomeAuto/Tw/tw.html

It is 22 years old!  Is any of it usable today?


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## ralphbsz (Aug 9, 2017)

Bad starting point: The documentation of the pinout of the special cable (to connect the TW523 device to a parallel port) is deliberately missing, until it gets clarified (hasn't been clarified in 22 years)?

Is the tw driver still in there kernel source?  How many computers even have parallel ports these days?  When I bought my server, a few years ago, I had to search pretty hard to find a motherboard with a parallel port on it.

Given that X10 to serial adaptors are easy to find, and given that serial is typically much less trouble than parallel (and easier to support in software, just open /dev/ttyXX and go to town), this seems pretty impractical.  Unless you happen to have the hardware sitting around already.


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## balanga (Aug 9, 2017)

I was wondering why a parallel port was being mentioned since my X10 equipment uses a serial interface. I guess I should look for more references related to FreeBSD and X10. Don't suppose anyone reading the forum uses X10...


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