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Re: Palm Pilot (serial?) interfaces and folding keyboards.

From: Bryan Andersen <>
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 08:05:06 -0500

Martin Ling wrote:
> 
> I was playing with a friend's folding PalmPilot keyboard - nifty little
> gadget, and would make a nice secondary input device for when one has
> space to sit down and lay it out.
> 
> I am told the interface on the base of a Palm (to which the keyboard
> connects) - a ten-pin affair - is straight RS232. Is this true?

Roughly.  Some of the pins are IO pins used for special purposes 
like the hotsync key, but basically it's RS-232.  I've played a bit 
controlling robots with it.  Drive current on the RS-232 pins is a 
bit under spec, but it works fine with most modern serial ports.  
Don't try to power anything off of them.  As for what's comming out 
of the keyboard unit, who knows...

I should pick up one of them keyboards for my Palm Vx.  I could then 
check it out.

On testing one, I'd just make a tap cable and moniter what is being 
sent back and forth between the keyboard and the palmpilot as various 
keys are pressed, etc.

-- 
|  Bryan Andersen   |      |   http://softail.visi.com   |
| Buzzwords are like annoying little flies that deserve to be swatted. |
|   -Bryan Andersen                                                    |

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