Infrared?

[Roger Oberholtzer]

On Sun, 26 Jan 2003 23:11:52 -0500
Kurt Wall <kwall at kurtwerks.com> wrote:

> Feigning erudition, Ted Ozolins wrote:
> % Kurt Wall wrote:
> % 
> % >Hello, list,
> % >
> % >Using Alan Cox's dmidecode utility, I discovered that one of my
> % >boxen apparently has an IR connector:
> % >
> % >Handle 0x001B
> % >       DMI type 8, 9 bytes.
> % >       Port Connector
> % >       Internal Designator: IR1
> % >       Internal Connector Type: Infrared
> % >       External Designator: IR1
> % >       External Connector Type: Infrared
> % >       Port Type: Other
> % >
> % >Do I *really* have such a thing on this beast and, if so, what do
> % >I do with it?
> % >
> % >Thanks,
> % >
> % >Kurt
> % > 
> % >
> % Quite a few MB's have the header for attaching an external ir port, the 
> % chipset to use the port is on the MB.  If you were to look at the manual
> 
> % that came with your MB there should be a pinout for that port.
> 
> Oy. The fine manual! There's a notion. :-\
> 
> % Now if you had a laptop with an ir port, you could use that to transfer 
> % files, or if you had a printer with an ir port then of course you could 
> % use the ir as the printer port.  
> 
> I have a laptop with an IR port. I have a Palm m515 with an IR port.
> Have IR, will beam. ;-) Wootberries!
> 
> % One other way to see if you have the ir port on the MB is to look at 
> % your BIOS setup and see if there is a setting for it...
> 
> I didn't see a setting in the BIOS, but, well, I got distracted looking
> at other settings.

One IMPORTANT BIOS setting is whether the IR will be in SIR or FIR mode. FIR
is faster, but SIR is more likely to work with most IR hardware. I don't
think (80% sure) that the linux drivers can set this. It must be done in
the BIOS. I am sorting this out between my Dell laptop and my phone. As in,
do I really want a Bluetooth card, or will the IR port do.

-- 
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