IrDA | Hacker News Reader

IrDA

computer.rip

39 pointsSniffnoy7 comments

I still use an IrDA device on a regular (3-4x yearly) basis - ScubaPro Galileo Luna dive computers. What’s more - somehow this works on an M-series Mac using no additional paid software. UTM with an older Linux distribution and some tools I hacked together a decade ago to spit out UDDF and it’s just a matter of very precisely aiming the IrDA dongle and hoping I remembered all the other small things.

Part of me is horrified that I need to do this to get my dive profiles. Part of me also says that my dive computer has worked and helped to keep me alive for weeks underwater so far, not much reason to change it.

For a moment I thought you said "timing the IrDA dongle" and goodness is it a good thing you don't have to do that part yourself

The article is a great read. Though it talks about OBEX, and how Bluetooth wiped out IrDA, but not that Bluetooth took OBEX straight out of the IrDA stack.

Not IRDA, but there was also IRTalk built into some of the Power Book series, allowing native AppleTalk to a diffuse IR access point. I really wanted to try that out but never had the opportunity.

I managed to have my first IRTalk experience for MARCHintosh this year. For fun I ended up setting up a "fully wireless" (battery-operated and wirelessly networked) ImageWriter II and let people online print to it https://bitbang.social/@kalleboo/116289415275901037

Could someone revive the GigaIR protocol?

You can probably implement or use it with $1 worth of components connected to any modern SBC. It's a solution... what's the problem? Start there!

Uhhhh, no.

IrDA hardware is tuned for low quality LEDs and Photodiodes that have as far as several meters to traverse. (Aka: more noise issues).

To go Gbps bandwidth, you need higher quality everything. You probably have a better job starting from Ethernet SFP kinds of fiber optics rather than the cheap IrDA hardware.

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You probably will have great difficulty reviving 4Mbps fast IrDA, let alone 1000Mbps protocols that were only ever a spec sheet in practice....

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