Infrared

[czhower]

I'm using serial for debugging but several laptops Id like to work with do not have serial. They do have Infrared ports though.

Are the IR ports just serial ports on a COM port? Or are they similar? I've searched quite a bit on IR ports, both here and Google and not much turns up.

[Brendan]

Hi,

Are the IR ports just serial ports on a COM port? Or are they similar?

Not sure how they work internally, but it seems they negotiate with each other to determine protocols (one of these protocols is a COM port style protocol with COM port baud rates, etc).

To be honest, I've never really thought of IrDA (and never owned any IrDA hardware).

I've searched quite a bit on IR ports, both here and Google and not much turns up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_D ... ion#IrCOMM
http://www.irda.org/
http://www.irda.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=5


Cheers,

Brendan

[Dex]

Yes IR are just like virtual com ports, sometimes they may need enabling in the BIOS.
Here is a simple DexOS program to control a furby (the little fury things) by IR, that the same as writing to com port.

[gzaloprgm]

Cool! I was also thinking of implementing a homemade ir controller receiver, like lirc for linux.

BTW, Dex, you have lots and lots of asm source files xD

Cheers,
Gonzalo