Re: Irda confusion

[Rick T]

Thanks Frank.  That is a goldmine indeed.  I'm feeling much more confident about pulling this one off now.    Rick     ----- Original Message ----- From: Frank Ableson To: Palm Developer Forum Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 7:36 PM Subject: Re: Irda confusion Rick,   I would not spend the $ on the specs - I think it is silly for the irda folks to put up barriers like that... don't understand their reasoning there.  The AN888 app note is a decent resource.  It discusses the Falch.net development environment - which I think is no longer around?  As much as I liked their toolset a couple of years ago, I have switched back to CodeWarrior.  It's not ideal, but it's usable.  All of the important stuff is the same, ie, getting familiar with the Palm SDK and basic communications API.  You may also want to look at these dated, but still relevant tutorials:  http://www.palm-communications.com/tutorials.asp.  If you are a PIC developer, you will find the palm code more illuminating than the sad attempts at PIC assembler :).  There are many other resources available as well as you decide exactly where you want to go with your project.   Getting back to the IrDA spec, the simple concept here is that IrComm 9-wire (ie 2140/2150) is supposed to be a "wire replacement" for a traditional wired serial connection.  You *should* not have to worry about the specs.  This falls down when there are specific incompatabilities between devices, but there are generally enough folks around who make it their business to track those things down and this list is a good resource to search first, ask second.   Good luck   Frank   ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick T To: Palm Developer Forum Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 7:06 PM Subject: Re: Irda confusion Yes, it helps a lot!  And I'm quite relieved that I don't have to roll my own protocol handler.  Do you think I need to purchase the irda spec ($$$) or can I skip that for now?   By the way, I've spent the better part of the day with my nose burried in Microchip AN888 and I must say that it is the most comprehensive getting-started-in-palm-os tool I have run across.  It's simple, easy to understand, yet complete.  Made sense of some things that slipped past me while reading the 'more traditional' texts.  I really appreciate the effort that went into it.   Rick     ----- Original Message ----- From: Frank Ableson To: Palm Developer Forum Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 3:05 PM Subject: Re: Irda confusion Hi Rick   Save yourself a headache and stay away from Raw Ir, which means do not use the MCP2120.  For simple apps like yours it used to be the way to go, but the moving target that is Palm (any PDA really) devices and their variable IrDA support says to stick with IrComm.  The 2150 is a good product though it is not without it's faults with respect to some compatibility bugs.  Generally speaking it is better.  There are other Ir protocol chips available as well as software stacks for high end PICs.  Also, 64K is a fair amount of data, so you would wind up putting some additional protocol layers on top of raw ir anyway.  It comes for "free" with IrComm.   To work with the MCP2150 (or MCP2140 would perhaps be a more cost effective solution for you if you can live with 9600 baud), you will want to use SerialManager and open with the 'ircm' argument.  This is the "virtual ir comm port".  Note that the z22 and 2150 have an incompatability.  I have not tested the z22 with the 2140.   IrLibrary is good if you want to employ your own protocol over IrDA, though it makes the protocol chip question a bit more ambiguous.  If you want to run IrLPT for example, you will need to use IrLibrary.   Exchange Manager is to be used for OBEX (ie beaming) only in this context.   Unless you have a trailer full of a specific palm model, I would recommend you not be too concerned with a specific device, because as soon as you count on them, they're GONE.    hope this helps.   Frank CFG Solutions, Inc. www.cfgsolutions.com     ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick T To: Palm Developer Forum Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 4:30 PM Subject: Irda confusion Hi,   I am pretty new to Palm os and have quite a bit of confusion regarding communicating via the IR port. My application is to simply down load about 64k bytes of binary data from an embedded device -- a simple data logger.  That device has a PIC microcontroller and a Microchip MCP2150 IrDA controller.  I'm not set on the MCP2150, and a MCP2120 might actually be better suited.  I want to download the binary data onto a Tungsten E.  It's cheap, fast, & has great display capabilities.   Let me break my question into 2 parts:   1)  While scouting around news forums & the Microchip tech bulletins I found information that leads me to believe that the Tungsten E isn't suited for IrDA communications.  The reason seems to be the number of BOF's requested vs. the number of them sent/ignored by the T-E.  Is there a workaround other than use another handheld?  Does the problem occur only for the Ircomm layer?  Will things work okay for Tiny TP layer?  Raw IR?  If no workaround, does the Tungsten E2 have the problem fixed and has it been tested?   2)  Being new to Palm development, I'm completely overwhelmed by the many ways to communicate via the IR port with the SDK.  When would I use the Serial manager & when would I use the IR manager?  Exchange manager?  Any other ways that I don't know about?  I really haven't seen a fantastic tutorial that explaines WHY a specific approach should be taken.  Tutorials & books seem to present code without discussing why things are the way they are.    What I would love is for someone who has done something like this before to tell me something like, "Look at this part of the API Documentation on page ____, and pay close attention to ____, and these steps need to be in this order because ____."  Kind of a 'do it this way because it works' approach.  I'm too ignorant to reinvent the wheel.    A few helpful hints would be greatly appreciated.   Thanks a bunch, Rick -- For information on using the PalmSource Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/ -- For information on using the PalmSource Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/ -- For information on using the PalmSource Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/ -- For information on using the PalmSource Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/ -- For information on using the PalmSource Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/