Subject:
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RE: Laptop IR
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Thu, 17 Feb 2000 16:31:52 GMT
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Original-From:
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Morgan, David <david.morgan@rez.com+spamless+>
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Viewed:
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3231 times
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Jim,
The IR port on a Dell laptop is basically the same as PowerBook's (it is an
lrDA-1.1 compliant port). It CAN be used as a serial port, unfortunately
just not one that can talk to the RCX easily...
--
David Morgan
Senior Systems Engineer
REZsolutions Inc.
Ben-
I am using a Dell laptop than claims it can be used as a serial port. I
think that it is a different IR port than the Mac. Thanks for the input
though.
Jim
On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Ben Wyckoff wrote:
> Jim,
> I asked this question a few weeks ago, about an Apple
> PowerBook IR port.... This is the response I got from Dave Baum:
>
> -------
> In theory it may be possible, but in practice it hasn't been done. The
> reason is that the PB uses IrDA (it also features a special Apple-only
> protocol), while the RCX uses simple NRZ on a 38kHz carrier. In theory
> you may be able to use one of the higher IrDA baud rates to manually
> generate the 38kHz carrier for transmit, but this would require fairly
> low level access to the IR hardware. Receive is an even bigger problem.
>
> When you use the IrDA port as a substitute for a serial port you are
> actually running several layers of protocol (IrCOM, TinyTP, IrLAP)
> between the virtual serial interface seen by your program and the
> physical Ir hardware. The RCX understands none of these protocols.
>
> ---------
>
>
> So I simply bought an extra IR tower and Mac compatible cable from
> Pitsco Lego/Dacta.
>
> - Ben
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ben Wyckoff wyckoff@clearway.com
> Principal Engineer
> ClearWay Technologies, LLC. www.clearway.com
>
> "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas -
> only I don't exactly know what they are!"
> Lewis Carroll, Alice, Through The Looking Glass
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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