Hi, everybody!

This question is somewhat Perlish and somewhat hardwareish. And it takes me way beyond my skill level. I'm working with a volunteer group starting schools and orphanages in south-east Asia. The school wants a bell. That makes sense. They want it timed automatically, which also makes sense. If I were back in my sunny Southern California home I'd pick up something solid state, digital, and nice. No such luck on this little swampy island. I've set up a server (for files to be kept in one place) and it is always on so I thought, "If I could make Perl light up a USB port for x number of seconds it could throw a normally-open, 2.6 volt relay into closed position, which could then complete the circuit for a 220volt bell." Simple enough in theory....

So I started nosing around the Monastery. I searched for USB and found an interesting thread on Minidisk players. That's where I read, (paraphrased) "Doing anything in any language with USB is difficult." "Hmm, that makes it sound difficult." So I went to SoPW and the top post was a question regarding Win32::SerialPort. The existence of that module sounded promising, so I went to CPAN and found the module. WAY THE HECK OVER MY HEAD!!!! So, I thought I would at least post and ask if what I'm trying to do is possible. Is what I'm thinking possible? If you're taking the time to answer, "Yes!" and want to add a few seconds of your time to say how or where to start I'd greatly appreciate it.

And the children would appreciate it. For the love of God, think of the children!

Cheers!
--P
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

-Howard Aiken

2005-10-04 Retitled by planetscape, as per Monastery guidelines
Original title: 'OT: Using Perl to make a hot-lead from any port'

In reply to Using Perl to make a hot-lead from any port by Petras

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