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Smartplugs!

Let them feel useful.
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Ah, the old mac. Such memories. Or that 486 - still with papers from college on the harddrive. They were good in their time. And they still want to help. But with what?

With the new Smartplugs! from BUNGCO, your veteran computers can come out of retirement and do useful work - maybe more than ever before. Smartplugs! looks like a long power strip, with multiple sockets to plug things in. At the end of a strip is a joiner, so you can make blocks of 2, 3 or more Smartplugs. The Smartplugs! hooks in with a pin connector to the printer driver of your old computer. Simple software allows each plug to be individually governed, on or off, down to the second.

At the simplest, use Smartplugs to randomly turn on lights in the house where you are gone (random function included!). At the most complicated, use a block of Smartplugs! to govern multiple strings of Christmas lights, blinking on and off in patterns so complex that the neighbors must watch all day to see them repeat. BUNGCO provides 10 sample christmas light programs when you purchase 3 Smartplugs! Of course, instead of Christmas lights you could use the program with rock tumblers, blenders, and vacuum cleaners and listen to their merry concert.

Any computer sold in the last 15 years can run Smartplugs! Get some use out of them!

bungston, Nov 24 2004

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       I like this; what software?
dentworth, Nov 24 2004
  

       This idea was the inspiration for me to convince my parents to buy me my first computer. There was a government sponsered cartoon commercial in the US in the '80s about the wonders of personal computers, like being able to control the lights in your house. My Apple IIe didn't end up having this feature.
Worldgineer, Nov 24 2004
  

       I am behind the times, it would seem. I read the link for X10. Old transceivers? House codes? Schwa? Do people really have all this stuff? And me still flipping switches like some sort of Amish.
bungston, Nov 24 2004
  
      
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