Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!husc6!husc9!cleary
From: cleary@husc9.harvard.edu (Kenneth Cleary)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Elevator Controls (was: Re: Lasers)
Message-ID: <4163@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 13 Sep 90 02:32:25 GMT
References: <26@<1064> <21000101@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: cleary@husc9.UUCP (Kenneth Cleary)
Organization: Harvard University Science Center   Cambridge, MA
Lines: 23

In article <21000101@m.cs.uiuc.edu> irwin@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>/* Written  4:38 pm  Sep 11, 1990 by DAVE@ORION.BITNET in m.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.electronics */
>>Our elevators on campus are always quite busy, and we are looking to modify
>>them with a 'remote control' to allow authorized personnel immediate access
>>to a car when nessecary.  We hope to do this by placing radio-controlled
>>switches in parallel with the inspection key switches, and certain floor

(I didn't catch the original article, but...)
You should first of all discuss this plan with whatever agency regulates
elevators in your area.  Don't be surprised if they [politely] laugh, and
tell you to take a hike.  (My only experience has been with Massachusetts
state elevator inspectors, when I wanted to find out what laws I'd need to
comply with, when thinking about building elevator microcontrollers, though
Mass. regulations are mostly just lifted from federal standards.)  I thought
it was overly bureaucratic (at first), until you start taking a serious look
at safety.

Second, assuming you get approval, just take a look at any major urban
hospital, where such a system is implemented with keys, or numeric keypads
for some code.  Systems designed to allow physicians to respond to emergencies
get abused by other physicians, to the point of making it faster to climb
15 flights of stairs, than wait for the elevator.  (You think I'm joking?)