[757labs] Interesting idea - Ceiling lights in Minn. send coded Internet data.

[telmnstr at 757.org]

> Ceiling lights in Minn. send coded Internet data.
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101227/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_internet_via_lighting
> Anyone know if this has been done before?
> -- Chris

Yes! Sort of.

Back in the day I bought some wireless PCMCIA cards from eBay. This was 
before wifi. They were actually discounted heavily, because no one was 
buying wireless stuff.

Wifi (802.11b) existed and was used mainly in point of sale applications. 
The cards at the time were around $499 per AT&T WaveLan PCMCIA card.

Well these IBM things were pre-802.11b. It had an 802 but I think it ended 
in a 10. They were called Wireless Lan Entry. Windows 3.11 drivers only, 
but someone had a way to make them work with Windows 95. It was cool at 
the time being able to ssh or telnet wirelessly. The dryer took down the 
network tho. I think the speed was roughly ISDN speed.

Well, in that same family of stuff was another system IBM had where 
instead of wireless RF, it used IR. The card (which I believe looked 
closely idential to the Lan Entry cards) had IR LEDs and IR receivers on 
it. The "access points" mounted on the ceiling, and the data from the 
computer was shot upwards. So it wasn't using the florescent lights, but 
it was sort of the same idea.

This is the old radio system:
http://ps-2.kev009.com:8081/ohlandl/8227/8227.html

Hmmm some bits of the IR LAN:
ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/IBM_PC_BBS/network/irv220.txt


The issue with using florescent room lights is there is no path backwards?