Infared PDA Interface

crgwbr

I have an old PDA with one of those infared serial ports on it (this one to be exact).· Does anyone know what the baud rate the infared port is?· What about the programming on the PDA side (How hard? What Language?).

Thanks,
crgwbr

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mahjongg

The protocol that is used in most Palm pilots is "IRDA", see;

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irda

The IRDA protocol starts with a bit rate of 9600 bits per second, but can negotiate a higher rate if both devices support it.

As hardware, you need at the minimum an IRDA tranceiver, which is a combination of a LED, and a fototransistor with integrated receiver logic.

Vishay is the most well known producer of these, you can see their products here:

www.vishay.com/ir-transceivers/

The physical IRDA signal is like a RS232 signal (the start/stop bit protocol), only instead of a low or high during a bitperiod IRDA uses short pulses. The data is encoded in the presence or absence of a light pulse during a bit period.

For the software you need a "Protocol stack", an involved piece of software comparable with the protocol stack of USB. A protocol stack is written for Linux, maybe its possible to convert it to the Propeller, but is certainly not easy to do.

Mahjongg

hinv

Ooh, nice screen.

Check out my post http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=25&m=170360

Is there a reason you want to do IRDA and not straight serial. Palm pilots don't natively do IRDA actually, but their own protocol. You can add IRDA software to do things beaming to an HP Printer.
As for programming, I was hoping to do this in palm-tcl, since it is a language I am formilliar with. Unfortunately, it is not actively being developed.
Other than that, you can program the palm pilot in C, 68000 Assembly, Basic, and many other languages. Just check arround.

Thanks,
Doug

crgwbr

I wasn't sure if my old Clie' had a serial port, that's why I wanted to use IRDA. However, it looks like its worth a look since IRDA looks so complacated.

thanks,
crgwbr

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