There is however a power switch on the front panel, which I believe is
probably only controlling a low voltage/current, not mains voltage,
though I have not ascertained this for certain. The switch will power
the operating system down cleanly. I was thinking of
1) put an optically isolated switch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opto-isolator
in parallel with a mechanical switch
2) Drive the LED in the switch from a Sun Netra T1, which is located
nearby.
I could use a National Instruments GPIB board controlling a relay (as
I have as I happen to have the hardware and sofware I wrote for
controlling the relays). But I'd rather use something a bit smaller/
neater with less power consumption. I expect these old HP relays use
quite a bit of power.
I basically need to be able to supply about 10 mA to drive the LED for
a preiod of a couple of a few hundred ms, which is what I guess is the
contact period of someone pushing a small switch. Any ideas how I
might do this from the Netra T1?
My house has a 3-phase supply, with the garage fed from a different
phase to most of the house, so any form of switch relying on using the
mains wiring is likely to be out of question.