[NTLK] Searching for Jerome Vernet's application IrDAPackageInstaller

[David Arnold]

> On 25 Mar 2025, at 10:20, Vladislav Korotnev <vladkorotnev at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I remember trying to use that package back in the day but never got it to
> work reliably.
> 
> IIRC, the IrDA implementation of the Newton doesn't support OBEX which was
> the common way of transferring files back in the day e.g. between
> cellphones. They communicate using their own bespoke protocol on top of
> IrDA.

IIRC, you’re correct: Apple did not provide an ObEx implementation.

All Newtons use the Sharp ASK protocol; later models also support IrDA. 

> On which note, if there is a way to beam packages without having to
> bootstrap something like IrDAPackageInstaller, it may be worth investing
> time into figuring out that protocol instead. For example, the ESP32
> microcontroller is very cheap and modern but also supports infrared
> transceivers on a hardware level with DMA and all that fancy stuff, so if
> it was possible to make a package installer device with that.. :-)

Newtons, I think from the OMP onwards, have the ability to beam packages to each other (unless the package has the protected flag set, but there’s a way to unset that).

I don’t recall if that works from MP2K to eg. OMP, but I suspect it does?

In which case, it must run over ASK. 

Driving ASK from a modern microcontroller should be feasible.  The eg HSDL-1100 transceiver seems to be widely available in the surplus market. 

As always, a simple matter of programming :-)



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