(Or how to get your Psion to link to Windows'95/'98 using Infrared)

Original article: 28th July, 1998

Last Update: 8th May, 2001

• The description below can also be downloaded as an EPOC Word files (minus the graphics) here:-    IrDA.s5     (Updated 8th May)

• David Fanshawe has very kindly generated some step-by-step tips for successfully establishing a good IrDA link with PsiWin on his Revo once you've got all the necessary hardware and software set up and running on your machines (i.e. after following the instructions below).  As far as I can see, these steps apply equally well to any EPOC machine - so it's definitely worth taking a look at them.  A downloadable copy of his instructions are available on the page.

Someone emailed me the following tip that I'd actually been using without really realising it.  It wasn't until they pointed it out to me that it became blindingly obvious!  Hopefully, it may help one or two others as well...

"Martin,

I'd like to share my experience with you on getting the infrared connection to work between S5 and my Laptop (IBM Thinkpad 765L).

It has taken me frustrating months, but finally I found out why it didn't work. The only trick was to only ENABLE the Infrared port of the Psion at the moment I had the Psion in front of the Infrared eye. If at any time, I activate the infrared port before I have the Psion S5 in front of the IrDa receiver, it will not work! The machine will recognize the Psion (or SYMBIAN EPOC or whatever it says), but it will not establish a link. I have tested this over and over and it is a fact for my set-up.

Since at no point I have seen this trick mentioned, this may help other people around.

My equipment: - IBM Thinkpad 765L, windows 95 - Psion, message suite "fix" installed"

I  upgraded from Win'95 to Win'98 a few years ago (and have subsequently upgraded since - see the other articles available for linking to other versions of Windows) - so this article now covers both OS's.  I haven't tried using NT4.0 and so can't say whether or not it's possible to set up an IR link with that - although a few people have told me that there doesn't appear to be any IrDA driver either built in to or available for NT4.

Psion published an upgrade patch for Message Suite (v1.52) a few months ago.  In fact, this patch wasn't a patch for Message Suite at all - rather a patch for the part of the v1.01 ROM that controls how the Psion 'talks' over IrDA to any other IrDA (InfraRed Data Association) device...  Whereas before the S5 could only - somewhat unreliably - talk to a PC over an IrDA link and PsiWin, it now appears to be rock-solid at 115,200 baud, doesn't seem to drop the connection (as it frequently used to do), and seems to transfer files more quickly.

I think that their .sis patch installation file added a IrCOMM.csy file to the system/libs directory on my Psion. Certainly now when you look at Microsoft's InfraRed Monitor icon on the toolbar on your PC, it reports that it's communicating with a Symbian EPOC (!) - as opposed to a Psion Series 5 as it used to. ;-)  Since nothing's changed in my PC setup, something must have changed in my Psion!  Currently, you can get a copy of Psion's upgrade file at http://www.psion.com/downloads/msgsuite_infrared.html - but I've also put a copy here in case that page disappears.

In any case, make sure that you've either got this patch installed on your Psion or that you've got the latest version of Message Suite (v1.52) installed so that you get a more reliable link.  NB: This only applies to ER3 machines (Series 5, etc.) as ER5 machines (Series 5mx, Revo, etc.) already have this file/capability built in.

I originally started experimenting with my Psion Series 5 and an IR link to my Win'95 PC early in 1998 – with mixed success initially. This mainly due I think to PsiWin 2.01 being slightly unstable – it had a tendancy to crash Explorer and/or bring down Win’95. Also, a number of people reported at that time that they couldn’t get a stable IR link at the maximum speed of 115.2Kbps – although I managed this most of the time (until PsiWin started to complain anyhow!). Anyway, I’m pleased to be able to say that PsiWin 2.1 (check out Psion’s web site for a download on http://www.psion.com ) improved the stability greatly and PsiWin 2.2 and 2.3 are each better again.  PsiWin works reliably on both Win'95 and Win'98 platforms.

What do you need to set the whole thing up?

1. An IrDA adaptor for your PC or laptop (if it’s not already built in)
2. A copy of Microsoft’s latest IrDA driver (V2.0) if you're using Win'95
3. PsiWin 2.1/2.2 and a few troubleshooting tips perhaps…

The IrDA Adaptor

Many of the latest laptops already have an IrDA port built in – as well as one or two new PCs. If yours is one of these then you already have all the hardware you need and can go straight to the next section. If not then you’ll need to obtain either an adaptor that plugs into an existing serial port or – if your motherboard is ‘IR enabled’ – maybe just an adaptor that plugs into the IrDA socket on your motherboard. In practice, many motherboards share the IrDA socket with one of the serial ports and so there’s little advantage in going for the latter option. My current ‘board is one of these but I decided to go for a serial port solution for that reason (and because it gives you a little more flexibility in the future). After trawling the web for a few manufacturers of such devices I settled for a LiteLink™ from Parallax Research.

You can check them out for yourself at http://www.parallax-research.com/litelink.html. Parallax suggest DIP Systems Ltd. as their UK distributor. I checked to see if I could get it elsewhere cheaper, couldn’t, and subsequently bought one from them for (if memory serves) about £60 inc. VAT and P&P. DIP’s contact details are:-

The Technology Centre

The Street, Albury

Surrey GU5 9BZ, United Kingdom

Tel: +(44) 1483 202070   Fax: +(44) 1483 202023

You can ignore the software that comes with it.  All you need is PsiWin (and Microsoft’s IrDA driver if you're using Win'95).  Just plug the adaptor into a spare COM port.

New: NB: I've been advised that people have been unable to contact DIP above.  You might want to try following some of the following links to source suitable IR Adaptors:-

http://www.clove-tech.co.uk/products.asp?product=PS5-GBL

http://www.actisys.com/act-ir2000u.html

http://www.extendsys.com/prodinfo/infrared.html

http://www.extendsys.com/uk/

Installing the Software

If you're using Win'95, you'll need a copy of Microsoft’s latest IrDA driver 2.0 and in theory this is available from: http://www.microsoft.com/.  In case you can't find it, I've also put a copy here (434Kb).  If you're using Win'98, it's got v3.0 of Microsoft's driver built in so you won't need any additional software.

(NB: Before installing this driver, I would strongly recommend un-installing your current copy of PsiWin. If you don’t do this, PsiWin may not recognise that you’ve got an IrDA connection available when you activate it.   See the Troubleshooting / Hints & Tips section below for details of an effective way to do this.)

Now install the IrDA driver software – choosing the appropriate IR device and COM port, etc. when you install. Go to your PC's Control Panel, double click on 'System' and look at the Device Manager.  Make sure that the COM port you’ve chosen is set to run fast enough to allow the transfer speed you want to use – i.e. 115.2Kbps needs a COM speed greater than 115.2Kbps. Also, note that Flow Control is set to 'None'.  For example see below:-

Make sure that the COM port is set fast enough to support your virtual IR port at 115.2Kbps.  Also, note that Flow Control is set to 'None'...

Now you need to configure the IR settings  You should see both an 'Infrared' device and 2 'new' Infrared ports in the Device Manager.  Double click on the 'Infrared' device to bring up its dialog box.  Make sure that it’s looking at the right COM port. You shouldn’t have to do anything with the connection speed on the options tab:-

Set the IR port to look at the right COM port.

You can now test the IrDA link by turning the IR link on your Psion on and seeing if the IrDA icon in your system tray reacts – it should! You should be able to toggle the icon by turning the IR link on and off.

Now re-install your copy of PsiWin. Once this is installed and you’ve re-started your machine, you should be able to see both the IrDA icon and the PsiWin icon in your system toolbar looking something like this:-

The IR icon looking for an IrDA device.

PsiWin should be capable of seeing the IR port - although it won’t do this automatically. You need to right-click on the PsiWin icon on the toolbar and select ‘properties’. When the properties box comes up click on the ‘Connections’ tab and select the options as below.  Make sure that you set the maximum speed to 115200 instead of the default 'Maximum attainable' otherwise it won't work.  Also make sure that you also de-select all the other COM ports apart from the InfraRed one and it's a good idea to 'nudge' the InfraRed port to the top of the list too.

The correct settings in PsiWin's 'Connections' tab.

In theory, PsiWin should now be able to ‘see’ the IR link and should sync up as it would with the normal serial cable. You’ll probably need to experiment a little to find the ideal setup for your own way of working but I’ve been able to use it quite successfully to do all my backups, conversions, etc. from my desktop PC.  Below is a screenshot showing PsiWin 2.1 working over IrDA before Psion issued their IrDA patch for the Series 5:-

A Win'95/PsiWin2.1 connection over IrDA before Psion's IrDA patch.

A Win'98/PsiWin2.2 connection over IrDA after Psion's IrDA patch (note the change of device description).

Windows'98 IrDA driver can cope with seeing more than one IrDA device at once!

Troubleshooting / Hints & Tips

• Update: Un-installing PsiWin is not as straightforward as it should be.  By 'un-install' I mean that you really need to be able to delete the 'My Psion' icon from your desktop before re-installing PsiWin.  Over time I've developed the following technique for doing a clean and complete un-install (Win 95/98 only - don't know about NT):-

• It took me a while to solve my biggest problem when I was trying to get the IrDA driver to work every single time I used the machine. I finally tracked it down to not having the COM port speed set fast enough - obvious when you know how of course! Make sure it’s set at 460.8Kbps or greater.
• Sometimes in Win'95, my machine would forget to fire up the Litelink IrDA device when I turned it on. For some reason, closing Explorer down before shutting down before-hand seemed to fix this problem – I’ve no idea why!
• One of the problems with PsiWin when you backup is that it’ll close down all your apps. before backing up but then will only re-open the built-in apps. that you had open. I get around this by using John Boyce’s excellent (and free) JBStopGo app. for the S5. It’s available from John’s site at:- http://www.compulink.co.uk/~jbsoft/programs.htm.   It’ll remember all the apps. you had open and allows you to set IR as the default communication setting – nice.

• You might also like to check out Jim Pollock's excellent Psion Infrared Communications Software web pages at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/3947/ which have details of his IR programs for connecting all the Psions (Siena, 3c, 3mx, 5, 5mx, Revo, etc.) to each other and to PCs...

And Finally...

A big 'thank you' to all the people who have sent me comments, hints & tips, etc. about their IrDA experiences - many of the updates above are thanks to your help and encouragement.  :-)

If you've any questions, let me know by emailing me at.