[Coco] The CM17A "FireCracker" does work on the Coco

[K. Pruitt]

A few nights ago I was thinking about trying out Marty Goodman's DC Modem 
conversion to make it in to a host for an X10 CM17A Firecracker module.
Well it dawned on me that I had a perfectly good RS232 pack sitting here 
doing nothing, so I ordered myself a  DB25 to DB9 adapter which arrived 
today, and just a short while later. I had it working.  It can be accessed 
by simple basic pokes which of course means writing software for it for use 
under OS-9 is not going to be an issue and for those folks who like DECB 
they can use it without even using assembly.

So if anybody else would like to play around with remote control of lamps 
and such, the inexpensive firecracker (CM17A) does work on our cocos via the 
RS232 pack.

All I have written now is a little Basic "proof of concept" program that 
turns on unit 1 on house A.  I'll be doing a command line utility for OS-9 
that's will be a bit more full featured and useful.

The firecracker should work on the drivewire cable as well..  But I'm not so 
sure how much drivewire would like the RTS and DTR signals being messed with 
so I'll stick with the RS232 pack.