I suspect its far too many years programming things like the ZX Spectrum,
and I do have fairly skinny hands.
> both the twiddler and the GPS want the serial port. I guess I'll have
Is the twiddler happy not plugged into the serial port (ie not being a
mouse)
> to get a PCMCIA serial card or a DB9 - IRDA convertor or something.
> Any thoughts on how hard it would be to fake a serial port with the
> parallel port?
It depends what speed you want to talk and what you want to do. Firstly
you can't do IrDA and serial at the same time on a PC110 - there are two
UARTS and one is part of the modem chip, the other switchable.
As to parallel port serial, at 1200 baud its merely a right pain in the
backside. I'd be inclined to build something a bit more substantial with
proper buffers as well as the required voltage shifters. Perhaps a PIC and
a MAX232 with some of the PIC I/O lines wired to be the parallel port link.
At that point writing a serial driver for the PIC over parallel isnt very
hard.
Second unrelated news item: The slightly larger than PC110 Toshiba Libretto
will be getting an official US/EU product version and launch later this
year according to one computer magazine.