Mastodawn

Could this be the first battery-powered, fully-wireless ImageWriter II in history? Well, it might at least be the first one on #GlobalTalk!

Just in time for the end of #MARCHintosh, a cheap Farallon AirDock showed up on Yahoo Auctions, and since I already had one, I had to try this stunt - adding an IRTalk node to GlobalTalk.

It is currently live on GlobalTalk if you want to try it, I'll probably leave it up until either the battery runs out or I deem it too much of a tripping hazard.

#mb

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Karl Baron 2d ago

The Farallon AirDock is only advertised as being a way to connect up a PowerBook with infrared wirelessly, but reading the manual, it doesn’t actually need any drivers - just plugging it into the printer port it acts like a normal LocalTalk connection.

The included software is just needed to act as a LocalTalk bridge, or if you want to use the modem port instead.

That’s what gave me the courage to try to just plug it straight into the ImageWriter…

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Thomas Brand 1d ago

@kalleboo I used to use one to sync my Newton.

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Karl Baron

@Eggfreckles Interesting! All the documentation I found said that the AirDock only does IRTalk and the Newtons only do IrDA/Sharp so they weren't compatible, was there some third party software that enabled more protocols?

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Thomas Brand 1d ago

@kalleboo it might have been a different dongle. It was a long time ago. The same dongle could be used to sync a Newton, and print to a HP LaserJet with a IR window.