3 ms·
Reminds me of the trend in the mid-2000s of laptops having IrDA ports. A little bit annoying to use for portable devices. Definitely has a niche application in
by HPsquared 3y ago
Reminds me of the trend in the mid-2000s of laptops having IrDA ports. A little bit annoying to use for portable devices.
Definitely has a niche application in areas where RFI is to be minimized.
- appplication 3y agoAlso to a more trivial extent, perhaps the same idea behind the IR ports on Gameboy Colors. Which is a really interesting and probably underutilized feature to think back on now. And even more interesting in that this preceded the first mass consumer devices offering WiFi, which Wikipedia tells me only really took off with Apple’s iBooks in 1999.
- darkwater 3y agoWell I remember syncing my Palm Pilot via IrDA (but it was connected to the serial port, I just had a tower PC)
- gcr 3y agoLego Mindstorms bricks could be programmed over an IR connection like this. The earliest ones shipped with an IR transmitter that had a 9-pin serial socket on the back.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoIR was great, you could do things like transfer contacts and data between palmtops. I mean I got a palmtop (a Palm V iirc) for cheap well after they were commonly used and I never used it for anything important, but still, it was a cool device. I think I have it somewhere still, wonder if it still works. I mainly used it to play Sudoku on though.
- EvanAnderson 3y agoI immediately thought of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA