New leafs on an old tree

It is said that station start/stop can be performed through PHP code. Just opened a socket, wrote a simple HTTP request.It's something about "plat stopstation -?" in the HTTP part. I need to check this out.

Since I don't know much about JAVA socket programming, I have to google similar codes and try to simplify them.

try
{　　　　　
Socket socket=new Socket("192.168.1.100",9100);
String line;
PrintWriter os=new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream());

line=x get this from a String input x;
os.println(line);
os.flush();
System.out.println("Alarm:"+line);
os.close();
socket.close();
}
catch(Exception e)
{
System.out.println("Error:"+e);
}

Alarm service and BAlarmRecepient are a little complicate to me now. I think I will try BStatusString first. This is hard to go further without offical support or commercial stimulation.

By the way, I accidentally found this interesting BQL:
alarm:bql:select * from openAlarms

I used to believe that in order to print something, you need to install a printer driver on a OS, Even for a network printer. There are some walk-throughs on the Internet showing how to configure a direct printing port.

I've searching for a common protocol over TCP/IP that can make a printer print something. And the answer is YES, which means you don't have to install a printer driver and just write a common tool that hopefully works on most of the network printers.

This makes it possible to have a JACE controller send out alarm message directly to a network printer. Among all options, HP port 9100 (RAW, AppSocket, JetDriver ...) seems to be the simplest. However, there is no standard specification of this protocol. It has to be tested on each target model.

Here is a useful link:
http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/networkprinterhacking

This is kind of go back to old days. Low end customers need some low cost simple interface to show them important messages, such as critical alarms.

Solustion 1 - Buzzer
More and more controller support UO, which, in binary mode, provides 12Vdc output when it's activated. Mini 12VDC Electric Buzzer from Radioshack has been successfully used in a project.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102817&cp=2032058.2032230.2032266&allCount=19&fbn=Type%2FBuzzer&f=PAD%2FProduct+Type%2FBuzzer&fbc=1&parentPage=family

Solution 2 - big LED display system
My current selection is www.adaptivedisplays.com, simply because it provides the protocol details. I need to spend some time on the drive development and test.

Solution 3 - small Serial LCD
My current selection is melabs Serial LCD (SLCD). Yeah, it provides protocol too.