From: sleeper75se_at_yahoo.se
Date: 2001-11-29 00:29:04
Hi Laura,
It appears I was a bit hasty in my recommendation of the agilent
circuit... but the transceiver (HSDL1001) whould work?!? Anyway, I
agree IrDA is cool (think EEG + PDA!) but unfortunatily it's not that
cheap especially if you go for the super overkill high-speed version
(4 Mbits per second). You have to fork out about $80 for a device
that connects to the printer port. The serial versions are cheaper. I
found that the serial port Gerbil (what kind of name is that?! :-)
costs about $40. And for that price it really should be a primary
device. It's not that common that you want to use your PC as a
peripheral to your cell-phone or PDA.
I think I know what they mean with virtual ports, and in non
technical terms it means "we don't know how to make proper Windows
NT/2000/XP drivers" :-) That's not surprising, a real windows NT
driver requires a lot of work, and some of the documentation is only
available if you sign a non-disclosure agreement with Microsoft. :-p
The best way to go is perhaps to build your own tranceiver. Ubicom
makes really fast (50MHz+) microcontrollers and has source code for
an IrDA (IrComm) stack. Team that with a tranceiver module and you
might get away for a lot less, maybe $10.
/Andreas
--- In buildcheapeeg_at_yahoogroups.com, ldean_at_metrowerks.com wrote:
> Andreas,
>
> As I understand it, with the MCP2150 you can't have the same setup
on
> both sides because the MCP2150 can only function as a secondary
IrDA
> device. So you have to have something PC-side to function as a
> primary IrDA device or nothing happens. I found a couple of IrDA to
> serial converters, but haven't been able to find prices (or deduce
> whether they are primary devices):
>
>
http://www.decros.com/security_division/security_solutions/parts/irdac
> onv.htm
> http://www.greenwichinst.com/pdahpc.html
>
> An interesting note on the second site is that Win 2000 does not
> support virtual ports. I thought IrDA data could be read as if it
> were from a COM port, but apparently not on Win 2000.
>
> It looks like the HSDL 7000 does not transmit IrDA but a much
simpler
> protocol - it "interfaces with IrDA-compliant transceiver". IrDA
> would be fun to do because it is becoming a standard in infrared
> transmission, but it may be overkill in this situation.
>
> Laura
>
>
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