Here is the link to the ASCOM site's info regarding the 7 (6?) current device standard interfaces.
Telescope Driver
Camera Driver
Dome Control driver
Filter Wheel driver
Rotator Driver
Focusser Driver
Somewhere I think there is also a Weatherbased one - I think the Boltwood is ASCOM compliant ?
Not sure about the Flip-Flat ?
http://ascom-standards.org/Standards/Index.htm
Browsing though those and the "General requirements" should yield some idea of what its all about
http://ascom-standards.org/Standards/Requirements.htm
I am guessing that if you had a range of Hardware that was considered generically useful they might consider adding it.
In Steves case he mentioned a need to control his lighting - so maybe Astronomy related lighting and therefore a Lighting Controller in all of its variances could become a new standard and a new hardware device created ?
This would then make it modular, ASCOM compliant (assuming they can agree to it)
Most of the rest of Steve's list of requirements are already covered by ASCOM I think.
Someone just needs to make the hardware controllers, write an ASCOM driver and a Windows interface !!!
Then hopefully the rest of the world (if they think its useful) can integrate
its functionality into their software too.
Food for thought.
Rally