Re: [NTLK] 2100 and emate

Hello again everyone,
My 2100 has now arrived and judging by my various googling, I now seem to be
in the familar boat as many before me ! :) but I digress too early.

My Emate has yet to arrive as despite being purchased also from the USA
apparently will take 6 to 8 weeks to arrive - so I can only assume the
seller must be building it from scratch or something :-)

First impressions of the device seem good, I'm also impressed by the
handwriting recognition which was much better than expected especially from
a 1998 device, however the supplied preinstalled software seems a bit on the
slim side, compared to the Psion Netbook launched in the same year with a
colour screen and Web browsers and email software built in so i'm looking
forward to getting the newt going and a few apps installed.

Anyway, In my quest to avoid spending $12 on a cable from JK sales and
waiting for it to reach the UK, I am now experiencing the bootstrap problem,
in that I need to get the wifi and internet support on my unit!

I've currently narrowed it down to a few options, unless anyone knows of a
cable with built in dongle or dongle supplier in the West Midlands?

1) Apparently there was some PC software called Quick Beam that enabled you
to beam stuff to the newton via IRDA without needing the IRCOMM protcol, so
in theory would just need me to get a serial or usb IR unit however the
website for the software no longer exists - Has anyone used this? Does it
work? and where can get a copy?

2) Failing that - Modem2Modem - I have spent sometime tonight faffing about
with this- fortunately I have a Psion gold Card modem from my netbook - this
works fine in the newt and dials out and calls the speaking clock etc so I
know its working.
I can also get it to dial my other line to which I have connected my old 56k
External modem.
Using Hyperterminal in Windows XP I can can ATA0 the modem and get it to
answer the call, however I can't then exit hyperterminal as it disconnects,
and I can't load NCM-NT at the same time as Hyperterminal locks the COM
port.

3) Find someone with a Powerbook running OS 8 or 9 and an IRDA port and use
the 3rd party IRDA software who's name I've forgotten to beam it across.

4) - The final clutching at straws options - Will a 16bit PCMCIA serial port
card work ? has anyone ever tried it couldnt find a mention on the web?, or
what about an Apple Emulator on the Pc? I've run a version of apple on the
PC briefly before more out of interest than anything else but I can't for
the life of me remember what OS it used - only that it was in colour an more
modern one, would that possibly work with a serial to IRDA adaptor?.

Finally if I get a PCMCIA to CF and then could format the CF card to a
linear format on the Pc would it read it without ATA drivers if the CF card
capacity was small enough? I'm actually thinking of using an 8MB SD card
plugged into a CF adaptor, plugged into a PCMCIA adaptor formatted to the
correct format on a PC in order to get the wifi and net drivers on.

5) Just chuck it in the nearest river!

Thanks for all the replies so far
Leigh

====================================================================
The NewtonTalk Mailing List - http://www.newtontalk.net/
The Official Newton FAQ - http://www.splorp.com/newton/faq/
The Newton Glossary - http://www.splorp.com/newton/glossary/
WikiWikiNewt - http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
====================================================================
Received on Fri Jun 27 16:28:47 2008