LonTalk Protocol
The LonTalk protocol is the mechanism that Neuron Chips use to talk to each other.  It's now the ANSI/EIA standard EIA-709, under the auspices of the Consumer Electronics Association R-7.1 Home Networking subcommittee.  You can buy up-to-date copies of the standard from Global Engineering Documents,

These are the  documents currently available from Global Engineering:�

�  EIA/CEA-709.1 Revision: B Date: 09/13/02 Control Network Protocol Specification
�  EIA-709.2  Revision: A Date: 12/00/99 Control Network Power Line (PL) Channel Specification
�  EIA-709.3  Revision: 98 Date: 03/00/98 Free-Topology Twisted-Pair Channel Specification
�  EIA-709.4  Revision: 99 Date: 11/00/99 Fiber-Optic Channel Specification

The cheapest implementation of the LonTalk protocol is of course the Neuron Chip � all the hardware and software that you need for a few dollars. But if you want to use a different platform, I don�t recommend that you start a brand-new implementation of LonTalk from the EIA/CEA-709.1 document.  There are some portable C implementations of LonTalk already available. e.g. Adept Systems� Gadget Stack, and Loytec�s Orion Stack.
Protocol Stack Training Module (266KB)
This class was presented at the 1998 Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose.  It contains an overview of the design decisions behind the LonTalk protocol, detailed descriptions of the various protocol data units, and how they are generated and processed.  Use it for reference or for training purposes.
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