>I am new to Palm development and have a quick question. I am attempting to
>write a small application which will communicate with an IBM ThinkPad using
>the infrared port. For prototyping this exercise, the goal is to copy a
>text file to the ThinkPad's IR port (ie, COPY TEST.TXT COM3:) and be able
>to display the contents of the file on the Pilot.
>
>What is the most efficient way to accomplish this? I've looked at David
>Bowerman's sample Coms wrapper at the "Tech Center Labs HotLink" web site,
>but I can't get it to work. I have also expanded on the Beamer sample to
>send text data between 2 Pilots via the Exchange Manager (which works fine
>with 2 Pilots), but I cannot get the Pilot and the ThinkPad to "talk."
>
>Thank you in advance....
>Nick Metianu
The Beamer sample uses OBEX, an object exchange protocol which you will not
find supported on desktop/laptop systems. OBEX will work between 2 Palm.
For the kind of connectivity you want, you will need to investigate the IR
library, which exposes lower level IrDA protocols. Not for the
faint-hearted, it is not very well documented and there are few examples
around.
If you are interested, we are soon going to be making available a new
developer library Bachmann IR Manager, which drastically simplifies IrDA
communications to the point where you only need call Open, Send and Close.
If you'd like, we can send you some preliminary information on the Bachmann
IR Manager, and put you on a product announcement list when the product is
ready.
Glenn
Glenn Bachmann
President
Bachmann Software and Services, LLC
http://www.bachmannsoftware.com
Software Development for Handheld & Mobile Computing, Windows and the Internet
Home of Bachmann Print Manager, the only graphical printing solution for
the Palm Computing Platform
