> 1) As I'll need to buy an AC adapter (probably a universal one)
> can someone tell me what type of socket is on the machine.
I'm using a Uniross (UNI 1200R) 9V power brick I got from Maplin.
It came with assorted ends, one of which was exactly right. It does
seem to be rather non-standard: although the outer diameter is the
quite common 4.1mm, the inner diameter is abnormally small at about 1mm.
Most of the 4-way star connectors on universal power supplies (including
a very similar adapter I subsequently bought from Maplin) seem to have
a larger diameter centre which doesn't make good contact. The pc110 is
very power-hungry; with anything less than a 1A supply, it won't charge.
The solution that Dick Porter adopted was to buy a standard power supply,
then make a standard-to-pc110 converter tail from a line socket and the
plug cut off the Japanese supply.
> As regards compact flash am I right in assuming "compact flash" and
> "pico flash" mean the same thing?
Yes.
> There seems to be 32M (and soon
> 40M) compact flash cards out that work in the PSION does any one
> know if these will work with the PC110. Even if they don't could
> someone give me the part number of their 15M pico flash card that does
> work and sources in the UK (though I reckon I'd buy from the US)
I have used the Epson 15M pico flash successfully. I got mine through
T-Zone. I'll look up the part number if it helps. It is a bit of a
battle to make it work at the same time as a hard disk though.
> 3) I'd like to use an PCMCIA ethercard (maybe a modem/ethernet combined)
> Has anyone had any success (or not) with any specific cards
I haven't tried, since I can't bear to lose the hard disk, but
I'm sure others on this list can tell you of their (mostly good)
experiences. You might like to have a look at the list archive too,
http://swan.ml.org/pc110/ (but I haven't updated the topics index in
a while).
> 4) As an alternative to an ethernet connection I thought I could use
> the IrDA port and run PPP over it as a serial line.
This works well. I got some Adaptec AirPorts for the desktop end of
the link, and the connection works without any special software. However,
it is much more reliable if you add a layer to the protocol to cope
with the half-duplex nature of the link; scarabd (ftp://swan.ml.org/pub/robin/)
does this and knows how to change the baud rate of the AirPort.
Unfortunately, I can't use this as my default means of networking
because I use the serial port for talking to my GPS receiver, and
I don't know how to switch the UART between serial port and infra-red
port without a cumbersome re-boot. Has anybody tried looking at
ps2.exe to see how it does it?
I usually run PLIP over the parallel port.
> ... I might add I read Japanese quite well (I lived
> there for four years) so hopefully will be able to forward information
> from pc110-lovers is necessary.
Excellent! I'm sure that will come in handy.
Robin.
-- R.M.O'Leary <robin nospam at acm.org> +44 7010 7070 44, PO Box 20, Swansea SA2 8YB, UK