Home alarm using K8055

I have a K8055 board with which I experimented many years ago and tinkered with VB but by now I have pretty much forgotten all I ever knew.

I remember I had it set up so that each time an input changed state the K8055 would write the state of all inputs and outputs to a text file. Using the remote desktop I could check the state of the inputs and set the outputs. I just experimented and never did anything really useful.

That K8055 and Win XP Pro computer have been stored unused for some years now and I am thinking it would be good if I could connect some burglar switch sensors to the digital inputs and have the system send out an email each time an input changes state. Is this easily possible? I have pretty much forgotten all the VB I ever knew and would have to start from scratch all over again.

Like you I played with my K8055.
I connected a K8004 (PWM) to the analog output and a 12 volt power supply and then LEDs to the K8004.
I wrote a program (I’m sure someone could do a better job) that used the speech recognition of Windows 7 to control the brightness of the LEDs by voice in increments of 10% segments.
It was a lot of frustrating fun.
I am sure you can send emails but am not sure how to do it.
Since you can only use 5 volts for the digital inputs and if you use long cables I would wonder if the voltage would drop over the distance.
Something to think about and watch for.

Hi. The hardware part would be no problem for me as that is my strong facet. I remember looking through the schematic diagram and finding it quite easy to understand and interface.

The problem I have is with the VB software because it was about ten years ago, maybe more, that I did all this experimenting. I do not even have Visual Basic installed any more and would have to find a copy and install it again. I have totally forgotten all I knew and would have to start all over from scratch. I remember at that time several people told me not to waste my time learning VB because it was already discontinued and on the way out so I never continued with it.

I see I have some files in one folder: Form1.frm, Form1.frx, K8055_Demo.vbp, K8055_Demo.vbw, which I assume contain the original code and in another folder I have “K8055_Demo.exe” which I assume is the compiled program. I remember taking the example program supplied with the board and tweaking it somewhat.

So I guess I would need to (1) install VB again in my computer, assuming I can find a copy, and (2) find out how to send an email using VB when an event is triggered by one of the switches.

Maybe someone can give me some directions.

I used VB express.
This is a free version from Microsoft.
The one I used was 2008 I think there is a new version out now.
As far as learning I went to Youtube.com and searched for VB Express samples and other search term.
There are a lot of good videos.
I also searched online and found a lot of PDFs that were very helpful.

OK, I found my copy of MS Visual Basic 6.0 which I assume is what I used back in the day to modify the demo which comes with the K8055. Now I will have to install it and go from there.

I was hoping to find here someone who had already done something similar but, now that I think about it, it may be that I can find better help in some Visual Basic programming forum because really, the question is more about Visual Basic than about the K8055.

It turns out the disk cannot be read any more. I guess it deteriorated after all these years. Oh well, I’ll have to look for another copy of VB. It looks like this is going to be a long-term project.