Data Exchange / Communication - hermocom

A complex WWW/LX setup example

2009-10-15T12:07:09+00:00

Archived 2013-12-08
This page has been archived and some links may not work correctly anymore. No updates of this page will be done anymore.

Contents of this page:

Introduction:

WWW/LX is a software package made by and downloadable from D&A Software which allows Internet access with the DOS-based Hewlett Packard palmtops 100LX, 200LX, 1000CX and Omnigo 700LX.
You can download WWW/LX (for free) at ftp://ftp.dasoft.com/pub/WWW. The file is named "www3.zip".

It contains a TCP/IP stack with built-in IrDA and Ethernet support (in addition to the usual PPP and SLIP protocols which are needed for modem connections or direct serial connections to other computers) and the package contains several clients for almost every kind of purpose. An email client, a news reader client, ftp, telnet, finger and HV, a limited but useful WWW browser and get, which lets you get web pages automatically. Another very useful addition has been developed by Tony Hutchins using ROBOT/LX, an Internet robot program: ROBOWEB/LX. It combines get and ROBOT/LX so that you can get Internet pages or even whole sites onto your palmtop for offline reading. See this link for details.

It is relatively easy to set up WWW/LX and Post/LX for basic purposes. However, there are so many amazing sophisticated possibilities, which are not covered by the setup programs which come with WWW/LX and must be created manually.

Here are examples which should give you some ideas of what is really possible with WWW/LX. I have never seen another Internet software package which is so powerful and rich of features as WWW/LX. And in addition it is extremely user-customizable. See below. I won´t give you details here of how basic setups work, because you can read that in the WWW/LX documentation. Here I assume that you are familiar with the basics already.

Basics of my setup:

I use almost every possible kind of Internet connection, so you will find examples here which are useful, regardless which kind of connection you want to use:

Modem connection over the serial port with several ISPs
Modem connection via PCMCIA modem with several ISPs
Mobile connection via IrDA-enabled GSM mobile phone
Ethernet connection via PCMCIA Ethernet card
direct serial connection to a PC which is connected to the Internet (internet connection sharing)
IrDA connection to another PC which is connected to the Internet (internet connection sharing)

Take this as a "snapshot" of my current WWW/LX configuration and have fun with it!

My main application, which acts as the "central", is Post/LX. WWW/LX is loaded resident and activated everytime I press F5 in Post/LX to establish a connection. If you don´t use email that much, but more often use ftp or HV, it may be better for you to start www.exe manually giving the setup to use as a parameter. It will then connect instantly and return to the DOS prompt, so you can do whatever you want once the connection is established. If that is the way you want to use WWW/LX, most parts of my setup are not useful for you. I use Post/LX as the central application of my setup.

In general, my www.cfg only contains five basic setups, independent from the ISP to use. So my www.cfg is kept small and thus doesn´t need so much memory. www.cfg is always loaded entirely into RAM, so it really makes a difference if you have for example 10 setups (one for each modem / ISP combination using two modems and 5 ISPs) or only two setups for the two modems and do the ISP choice externally using the little utility wwwset.

You could even work with just ONE "general" www setup and modify all relevant parameters externally. However, I have not choosen that way because I want still to be able to use www.exe as a stand-alone program without having to use the external wwwset utility.

My WWW/LX setup:

My five basic www.cfg setups are [Modem1], [Modem2], [IrDA], [Ether] and [PPPD].
I also have TERM-IR and TERM-K, which are explained below.

Modem1 is for an external modem on COM1
Modem2 is for a connection via PCMCIA modem (COM2)
IrDA is for mobile phone connections over IrDA, for either Internet or SMS
Ether is for a connection to my home PC via Ethernet card
PPPD is for serial or IrDA connection to my home PC or laptop running Linux and the pppd (PPP deamon) and internet connection sharing (=IP forwarding and IP masquerading)
TERM-K and TERM-IR is for a dumb terminal which enables you to send AT commands to a modem or mobile phone (IrDA) and connect manually (for debugging purposes). It requires you to have telnet.exe (also available on the dasoft ftp server) and you have to call it from the DOS prompt that way: www.exe -d TERM-[IR|K] "!telnet local"
IR stands for IrDA, K for Cable.

My Post/LX setup:

Post/LX is set up in a way that I only need to press F5, then it launches a batch file "setcom.bat" via the post.cfg parameter "PreOnline". setcom.bat determines the connected hardware and decides, which www setup to use. If it finds out that I want to connect via modem, it lets me choose an ISP. Otherwise it changes the active www setup instantly to the appropriate one from the five setups mentioned above. In addition I let setcom ask me (only for the setups where it is useful), if I want to let WWW/LX disconnect after the online run of Post/LX, i.e. directly after mail sending / receiving. If I want to surf the web with HV after transmitting mail for example, I choose to keep the connection. In other cases, for example when I will have an expensive connection via mobile phone, and I´m sure I don´t want to do anything else than sending the email I just wrote, I can choose "yes, disconnect!" and the connection is terminated as fast as possible automatically after the Post/LX online run. This is done via the post.cfg "PostOnline" parameter which invokes a batch file after every online run.

I also use Post/LX for SMS sending and receiving via IrDA and my mobile phone. For this purpose, I have created a keyboard macro in post.cfg, which lets me send and receive all SMS just by placing the mobile phone near the palmtop´s IR port and fressing F8 in Post/LX. Note that if you are used to use F8 for pther purposes (for example for marking messages during you read them), you should NOT use that macro. I do never use F8 with the functionality Post/LX gives to it, and in the main screen of Post/LX F8 doesn´t have any functionality anyway. So I could choose F8 as my SMS macro activating key.

For more info on how to setup PDU for SMS processing please download PDU from Stefan Peichl´s homepage and read the documentation.

Here are some screenshots of my Post/LX main screen:

The main screen with some folders and mailboxes (SMS box on top so that the F8 macro works, see post.cfg below!):

Here I pressed Shift-F5: Only the one "Default" WWW/LX setup is shown. No need anymore to choose anything here!

This shows some of my "Externals" entries (Menu-X-X). Hotkey "S" chooses "SMS" (so that the F8 SMS macro works, see post.cfg below!)

My cfg config files:

Okay, enough words, I will now show you my cfg and batch files and add comments everywhere I think it´ necessary. Again: Please read the WWW/LX documentation carefully in order to understand everything. I won´t answer questions covered there.

Click here to see my www.cfg file (don´t use the file as is, because it contains html tags! Load it into your browser by clicking on the link and then mark, copy and paste! Passwords are replaced by dummy strings.)

Click here to see my post.cfg file (don´t use the file as is, because it contains html tags! Load it into your browser by clicking on the link and then mark, copy and paste! Passwords are replaced by dummy strings, most folder and mailbox data is removed because it is not relevant here)

My batch and other involved files:

Now follow the batch files and a robot script (thanks to Tony Hutchins who provided this script!) which enable the magic of my setup ;-)

First I provide the setcom.bat file which is invoked directly after pressing F5 in Post/LX (by the PreOnline parameter in the cfg).
Then follows the batch file choosisp.bat, which is invoked from within setcom.bat and which is responsible for the appropriate Dial and login paramteres, depending on the ISP which shall be used. choosisp.bat is only invoked if setcom.bat recognizes a modem, either on COM1 or in the PCMCIA slot.
After that you will see postonl.bat, which handles the disconnecting after the online run (invoked by the PostOnline parameter in the cfg.
Thereafter at.scr (a robot script) is shown which setcom needs in order to distinguish, if the device connected to IrDA or the serial port is a modem or another computer.

And finally, I will show you my postlx.bat, which I use after booting the palmtop to invoke Post/LX with WWW/LX loaded resident.

For all this you need the following programs:

port1.exe or modem.com which looks if there is something connected to COM1
wwwset.exe, which sets WWW setup parameters externally
dis.com which is part of the WWW/LX package (terminates connection)
Robot/LX (Robot/LX), which executes SCR scripts
lxcic.com which detects, recognizes and enables PCMCIA cards
PDU for SMS processing
choice.com which is part of DOS, but not included in the palmtop ROM.
LXETH, the Ethernet packet driver for the LX, if you use an Ethernet card
maxdos, if you want to reserve as much DOS memory as possible for external programs like an editor or HV.

Download links for these utilities (as far as they are not part of the WWW/LX package) are provided directly within the batch files below (where the utilities are used), simply click on the links and download the utilities.

Click here to see my setcom.bat file (don´t use the file as is, because it contains html tags! Load it into your browser by clicking on the link and then mark, copy and paste!)

Click here to see my choosisp.bat file (don´t use the file as is, because it contains html tags! Load it into your browser by clicking on the link and then mark, copy and paste!)

Click here to see my postonl.bat file (don´t use the file as is, because it contains html tags! Load it into your browser by clicking on the link and then mark, copy and paste!)

Click here to see my at.scr file, created by Tony Hutchins.

This is the line of setcom.bat which invokes Robot/LX with at.scr:

ROBOT.EXE -q AT.SCR >NUL

It appears twice in setcom.bat. Once in the section for a device on COM1 and once for the IrDA section.

And here is my postlx.bat, which I use to start Post/LX with WWW/LX loaded resident:

@echo off
maxdos -l -e
C:\DFU\WWWLX\WWW.EXE -d !C:\DFU\WWWLX\POST.EXE
maxdos -r

Involved batch and configuration files linked from the text above:

at.scr

;at.scr, provided by Tony Hutchins
;tests, if device on COM1 or IrDA is a modem or not by sending an AT command.

e testing modem ...\n
;create file at_no_ok.tmp
file w at_no_ok.tmp
put 1\n
file c
e sending AT\n
send AT\r
e waiting for OK\n
wait 2 OK
e GOT OK\n
;delete file at_no_ok.tmp, if OK has been received, otherwise leave it there
file d at_no_ok.tmp
x

choosisp.bat

@echo off
REM CHOOSISP.BAT (choose ISP)
REM this batch is called by setcom.bat! Don't use it manually!
REM %1 is the WWW setup to use as the basis for the settings

echo.
echo.
echo Now choose ISP:
echo ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
echo.
echo (1) MSN Easysurfer (???)
echo (2) E-Plus Online  (60 Freiminuten pro Monat)
echo (3) TU Berlin ZRZ  (Ortstarif Berlin)
echo (4) Compuserve Classic Berlin
echo (5) Compuserve Classic International (adjust Dial string!)
echo.
choice /c:12345
if errorlevel 5 wwwset "%1 Login=117144,1520 Dial=ATX3DT0,901666255 Password=xxxxxxxx Script=CIS_Script"
if errorlevel 4 wwwset "%1 Login=117144,1520 Dial=ATDT691000 Password=xxxxxxxx Script=CIS_Script"
if errorlevel 3 wwwset "%1 Login=dherbgba Dial=ATDT31553500 Password=xxxxxxx"
if errorlevel 2 wwwset "%1 Login=hertrich Dial=ATDT010880192192 Password=xxxxxx"
if errorlevel 1 wwwset "%1 Login=msn Dial=ATDT010880192658 Password=xxxxx"

echo.
echo.
choice Disconnect directly after Online run?
if errorlevel 2 goto nodis
goto end

:nodis
echo 1 > nodis.tmp

:end

post.cfg

; Configuration file for the POST/LX package

[FILTER]
HPLX-L@=hplx-l

[MFILTER]
>=q
??>=q

Subject=h

Date:=+
Subject:=+
From:=+
To:=+
Cc:=+
*=-

[MACRO]
;F8: send / receive SMS.
;Esc Esc Home Space Menu X X S Space
;(SMS box must be first in Post/LX list, SMS batch must be external using hotkey S,
;up/down arrow of SMS box must be DEactivated (script activates for you))
#4200=#011b#011b#4700#3920#c800#2d78#2d78#1f73#3920


[SYSTEM]
;only relevant for ROBOWEB/LX:
ExtProg=ROBOT.EXE -p "RWEB1 po"
Scripts=c:\_dat\wwwlx\ROBOWEB

;for opening of attachments with the appropriate program:
PNS=maxdos pns200.exe

PreOnline=SETCOM.BAT
PostOnline=postonl.bat
ManualPack=1
ForceDate=1
Editor=maxdos PEH.BAT $f $h $x N
EditSM=maxdos PEH.BAT $f $h $x N
HangUp=0
TimeZone=+0200
Overlap=0
Quote=>_
Clog=1
TopLines=0
ZoomMode=1
LZoomMode=0
AllHeaders=0
ReFormat=1
NoQuote=0
Download=a:\attach
Japanese=0
Dir=a:\_dat\wwwlx
TmpDir=c:\_tmp
ClipFile=c:\_dat\clipvue.txt
Selected=Mail
Init=1
MIME=0
ShowDate=0
GrabLink=c:\_dat\clipvue.txt
GrabAdr=c:\dfu\wwwlx\post.adr
RegKey=xxxxxxxxxxx
GrabText=c:\_dat\clipvue.txt


[EXTERNAL]
&Disconnect WWW/LX=DIS.COM
&HV (as Webbrowser)=HV
H&V (with last email)=HV $f
&Read message in V&R=a:\programs\vr100\vr.exe $f
Edit &.CFGs=pe.exe c:\dfu\wwwlx\robot.cfg  $c
;SMS external with hotkey S:
;   robosms.bat is simple:
;   @wwwset "IrDA"
;   @robot.exe pdu
&SMS=robosms.bat

[HEADERS]
Cc:=Cc:
Bcc:=Bcc:
DeliveryConfirmation=Return-Receipt-To:my.own@email.address
X-Priority:=X-Priority:
Importance:=Importance:
Sensitivity:=Sensitivity:
Depth=:=Depth=:
MaxCount=:=MaxCount=:
Return-Path:=Return-Path:

[WWW]
;only one entry here, because PreOnline=setcom.bat does everything to choose
;the WWW setup to use!
Default=Modem1

[HTTP]
MaxTotGet=100

;========= MAILBOXES ===========
; (most of mine removed here in the example)

[FOLDERS]
SMS=E
RWEB=X
Mail=E
csc=E
hplx-l=F
archivlx=F
sentarch=F

[SMS]
CheckFields=0
Alias=SMS
Dir=c:\_dat\wwwlx
SMTP=not.set
POP=not.set
Template=SMS.TPL
Del=0
Sep=0
RPA=0
APOP=0
VolatilePOP=0

[Mail]
ForceDate=1
Alias=E-Mail GMX
APOP=0
RPA=0
Timeout=60
Del=1
Sep=1
SMTP=mail.gmx.net
POP=pop.gmx.net
VolatilePOP=0
Limit=10000
Signature=c:\_dat\wwwlx\signatur.txt
Login=206139
Pass=xxxxxxxxxxx
TopLines=20
Dir=c:\_dat\wwwlx

[csc]
Alias=E-Mail Compuserve Classic
SMTP=smtp.sompuserve.com
POP=pop.compuserve.com
Login=117144.1520
Pass=xxxxxxxx
Del=1
Sep=1
APOP=0
VolatilePOP=0
Limit=10000
Signature=c:\_dat\wwwlx\signatur.txt
Dir=c:\_dat\wwwlx



;============ FOLDERS ============
; (most of mine removed here in the example)

[hplx-l]
Alias=HPLX Mailing List
Sep=1
Box=Mail
Dir=c:\_dat\wwwlx

[RWEB]
Checkfields=0
Dir=C:\_dat\wwwlx\ROBOWEB
Alias=ROBOWEB/LX

[sentarch]
Sep=0
Alias=Archive of sent messages

www.cfg

; Configuration file for WWW
; A. Garzotto, February 1998

[Global]
Command=C:\dfu\wwwlx\wwwmenu.exe
;(when www.exe is executed from command line without a program to run
;automatically, wwwmenu is executed. It lets you choose what to do (HV, Post/LX...))
Cache=C:\_DAT\WWWLX\WWW.CAC
Hosts=C:\_DAT\HOSTS
Setup=Modem1
;Log=c:\_DAT\WWWLX\WWW.LOG
UserName=Daniel Hertrich
RegID=xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Setup]
Ether=Ethernet HomePC
Modem1=Modem on COM1
Modem2=Modemcard on COM2
IrDA=IrDA connection
PPPD=Connection to PPPD on Linux
TERM_IR=DumbTerminal_IrDA
TERM_K=DumbTerminal_Cable

[Script]
CHAP_Script=PPP dial up using CHAP or PAP
ISP_SLIP_Script=Generic SLIP (needs to be modified)
CIS_Script=Compuserve Classic dial up
pppd_script=PPPD on Linux over serial line or IrDA

[CHAP_Script]
e=Initializing modem
m=
s=\r
w=5 OK
d=
s=\r
w=75 CONNECT

[CIS_Script]
e=Initializing modem
m=
s=\r
w=5 OK
d=
s=\r
w=75 CONNECT
@=1
e=Connecting to CIS
s=\003
w=15 D:
e=Sending login
l=
s=/noint/ppp:cisppp
s=\\
e=Sending password
p=
s=\r
e=Waiting for CIS to respond
w=75 PPP

[ISP_SLIP_Script]
e=Initializing Modem
m=
s=\r
w=5 OK
d=
s=\r
w=75 CONNECT
s=\r
w=5 name:
e=Logging in
l=
s=\r
w=5 word:
e=Sending Password
p=
s=\r
w=5 :
e=Starting SLIP
s=SLIP\r
w=3 IP address is
i=

[pppd_script]
s=\r
@=3

; adjust and uncomment the following line to set up a HTTP proxy server
;HTTP_Proxy=proxy.zrz.tu-berlin.de:3128


[Ether]
Ether=1
My_IP=172.16.96.18
Peer_IP=172.16.96.1
;Peer_IP is the IP of the Computer which the palmtop is connected to (usually gateway)
DNS_IP=217.5.100.1
DNS2_IP=194.25.2.129
Script=CHAP_Script
Login=DOESNTMATTER
ModemInit=AT&F
Dial=00000
Password=DOESNTMATTER


[Modem1]
Port=1
OmniGo=0
PPP=1
Modem=1
Baud=57600
My_IP=0.0.0.0
DNS_IP=0.0.0.0
DNS2_IP=0.0.0.0
Script=CHAP_Script
ModemInit=AT&FL1
Dial=ATDT31553500
Login=dherbgba
Password=xxxxxxx

[Modem2]
Port=2
OmniGo=0
PPP=1
Modem=1
Baud=57600
My_IP=0.0.0.0
DNS_IP=0.0.0.0
DNS2_IP=0.0.0.0
Script=CHAP_Script
ModemInit=AT&FL1
Dial=ATDT31553500
Login=dherbgba
Password=xxxxxxx


[IrDA]
Port=-1
OmniGo=0
Modem=0
PPP=1
Baud=38400
My_IP=0.0.0.0
DNS_IP=0.0.0.0
DNS2_IP=0.0.0.0
Script=CHAP_Script
ModemInit=at+cbst=71,0,1;+chsn=1,1,0,4
;For correct settings of init and dial string for your mobile phone,
;please read http://www.hermocom.com/knowledgebase/hplx/mob_hplx
Dial=ATDT03031553500
Login=dherbgba
Password=xxxxxxx


[PPPD]
Port=1
OmniGo=0
PPP=1
Modem=0
Baud=38400
My_IP=0.0.0.0
DNS_IP=0.0.0.0
DNS2_IP=0.0.0.0
Script=pppd_script
Login=
ModemInit=
Dial=
Password=


;===================== Dumb Terminal Setup ===================
; CALL WITH www -d TERM-[IR|K] "!telnet local"
; useful e.g. to send AT commands manually to a modem or mobile phone

[TERM-IR]
Port=-1
Baud=38400
Modem=1
Script=T_Script

[TERM-K]
Port=1
Baud=19200
Modem=1
Script=T_Script

[T_Script]
?=
e=done

setcom.bat

@echo off
REM SETCOM.BAT
REM called by "PreOnline" feature of Post/LX
REM sets communication parameters for WWW/LX depending on attached communications hardware

if exist nodis.tmp del nodis.tmp
if exist pcmcia.tmp del pcmcia.tmp
REM nodis.tmp is used by postonl.bat to prevent automatical connection termination.
REM The file will contain nothing, postonl.bat only checks if it exists!
REM Similar with pcmcia.tmp: it tells postonl.bat that there is a PCMCIA modem
REM so postonl.bat can switch PCMCIA power off after the online run.

lxcic>NUL
if errorlevel 7 goto un_card
if errorlevel 6 goto lan_card
if errorlevel 3 goto un_card
if errorlevel 2 goto modem_card

:un_card
port1 > NUL
if errorlevel 1 goto no_ext
echo External modem or serial line to PC detected
echo Testing if modem or not...
wwwset "Port=1"
robot.exe -q AT.SCR > NUL
if exist at_no_ok.tmp goto com1noat
echo the device on COM1 is a modem! :-)
call choosisp.bat Modem1
goto end

:com1noat
del at_no_ok.tmp
echo Connection over COM1, but no modem!
echo Setting up for Linux PPPD over serial line
wwwset "PPPD port=1"
goto end

:no_ext
echo No extermal device found, trying IrDA setting
wwwset "Port=-1"
robot.exe -q AT.SCR > NUL
if exist at_no_ok.tmp goto ir_noat
echo The device on IrDA is a modem!
echo.
choice Disconnect after Online run?
if errorlevel 2 goto echo 1 > nodis.tmp
wwwset "IrDA"
REM you could also call choosisp.bat from here, if necessary!
REM for me it isn´t, because I only use one ISP with my mobile phone
goto end

:ir_noat
echo NO MODEM on IrDA. Setting up for Linux PPPD over IrDA...
wwwset "PPPD Port=-1"
goto end

:lan_card
echo LAN card detected
echo loading packet driver....
c:\dfu\lxeth\lxen2216.com 0x66 > nul
wwwset "Ether"
goto end

:modem_card
wwwset "Port=2"
REM tell postonl.bat that there is a pcmcia modem:
echo 1 > pcmcia.tmp
echo Modem card detected (COM2)
call choosisp.bat Modem2
goto end

:end

postonl.bat

@echo off
if exist nodis.tmp goto nodis

:dis
dis.com

REM if there is a PCMCIA modem, switch PCMCIA power off to save power:
if exist pcmcia.tmp lxcic o > nul

echo unloading Packet driver if LAN card is present...
lxcic>NUL
if not errorlevel 6 goto common
echo LAN card detected. Disconnecting...
c:\dfu\lxeth\termin 0x66
goto common

:nodis
echo Not disconnecting now.
echo Disconnect manually with Menu-X-X-D
goto common

:common
call sr.bat
REM (sr.bat is from the ROBOWEB package)
if exist nodis.tmp del nodis.tmp
if exist pcmcia.tmp del pcmcia.tmp

LXGLUC.wk1 Diabetes data management with Lotus 1-2-3

2009-10-20T10:23:35+00:00

Archived 2013-12-08
This page has been archived and some links may not work correctly anymore. No updates of this page will be done anymore.

Contents of this page:

Introduction:

LXGLUC.wk1 is a (free) Lotus 1-2-3 worksheet for diabetes data management. It makes it possible to track diabetes data and provides some powerful data analysis and plotting features.

It is menu and macro driven, thus very convenient to use, optimized for as few keystrokes per action as possible.

LXGLUC.wk1 is useable on every computer running versions 2.4, "portable" or above of Lotus 1-2-3, such as the Hewlett Packard palmtops 95LX, 100LX, 200LX and OG700LX which have Lotus 1-2-3 portable in ROM, or any other MS-DOS or Windows machine. Currently, LXGLUC.wk1 only runs on English versions of Lotus 1-2-3.

I developed LXGLUC.wk1 to have a full-featured and mobile replacement for a commercial Windows software. Of course, LXGLUC.wk1 is not a 1:1 copy of that software, but it supports its most important features, including some complex data analysis, which can lead you to the sources of eventual therapy failures.

LXGLUC.wk1 is entirely independent from the different units for Diabetes data used in the world. It can be configured to use mmol/l instead of the default (mg/dl) with only a few keystrokes using a setup macro. Everything else is unit-independent.

What´s new? (version history):

HISTORY:
~~~~~~~~

v1.0 released 02-05-19:
     First release, some functions not yet implemented,

v1.1 released 02-05-30:
     * Much improved Standard Day graph (now 24 bars, each for one hour
       of the day, instead of 4 ranges, additionally amount of
       measurements (which the value is calculated from) on top of the
       bars!
     * Improved Standard week graph (amount of measurements on top of
       bar)
     * Analysis macro now writes the date of its execution into
       cell Q4 and graphs use that date in the title, so it is now
       obvious how recent the data is from which a graph is created.
     * Basal Rate graph now uses Basal Rate date in title
     * Usage guide (LXGLUC.TXT) partially rewritten. Please read it!
       (Especially advice added how to use data analysis to improve
       the therapy)
     * macro \I added to import old v1.0 data.
     * macro \O added to sort the diary
     * minor macro enhancements

v1.2 released 04-05-22:
     * bugfix: cell AH27 was faulty and caused the 7h-8h glucose
       average not to be calculated correctly.

     WK1 files created with version 1.1 can directly be used with 1.2.

Download:

CLICK HERE

Unzip the downloaded archive file, then unzip the contained file lxgluc.zip into your favorite Lotus spreadsheet working directory and follow the instructions in LXGLUC.TXT.

Screenshots:

This is how LXGLUC.wk1 looks on the palmtop Hewlett Packard 200LX:
(note: all data is fictive, there are no real personal values involved)

Data entry: Diary

Data entry: Long-term data

Some data analysis results

Graph: glucose.
Interpretation: About every other day there is a way too high blood sugar value. But almost all other values are around 100 mg/dl and thus the blood sugar is relatively good at all. Let´s see if the next graphs show you if there is a tendency when the high values usually occur...

Graph: Standard day (glucose average values)
Interpretation: Attention: There are a few low values at night, maybe you should lower the basal rate (see next graph). But on the other hand, you should observe that a bit longer to get reliable results, because these low values were calculated each from only one (1 above the bars) measured value. Also the high value at 16-17 is not very reliable, because it is base on only one measurement. But there seems to be a tendency to high values at 12-13 (the bar is based on 5 measurements, so here has to be taken care, since it seems to be repeating!) and at 22-23. Could this be caused by meals, because maybe you usually take a meal at 12 o´clock and around 9pm? If yes, your bolus to carbohydrate ratio bay be too low. Otherwise, maybe the basal rate has to be increased. In the range around 9-11 you should lower the basal rate, because low blood sugar values seem to occur regulary between 10-12!

Graph: Basal rate of insulin pump. Can directly be compared to Standard Day graph in order to adapt the basal rate to the daily course of the blood sugar.
What you can see in combination with the standard day graph: In the range 9-11 the basal rate is already very low, but it should be lowered even more. So, consider setting it to 0.1 at 9-10 and 10-11! And due to the low glucose values early in the morning, maybe the basal rate should also be lowered between 00 and 03 or 04.

Graph: Standard week (glucose average values)
Interpretation: Why is the blood sugar so low on Mondays and Wednesdays, compared to all the other days? May be coincidence, because not very much measurements are used to calculate the values (only 4 to 8 measurements), so wait a few weeks and review the graph then to see if there is really a tendency to bad values at specific days!

Graph: blood pressure

Graph: weight
Interpretation: Seemed to be a good diet between July 01 and May 02!

Graph: HbA1, HbA1c
Interpretation: What caused the high motivation to care about the blood sugar before Aug-99? Think about it and try to get a similar motivation again! The recent HbA1(c) value tendency is definitely not what you want! Try to keep the HbA1 below 8% and the HbA1c below 7%!

Using LXGLUC.wk1 with Excel

It is possible to load LXGLUC.wk1 into Excel under Windows. That makes it possible to easily print the graphs or the diary as a list to take them to the doctor.
All the values and formulas will be treated correctly, however, Excel does not make use of the macros and menus of LXGLUC, so operating LXGLUC.wk1 under Excel may be difficult.

LXRTF - Easy rich text formatting on the HP Palmtop for MS Word etc.

2009-10-20T10:49:36+00:00

Archived 2013-12-08
This page has been archived and some links may not work correctly anymore. No updates of this page will be done anymore.

Easily create fully formatted text documents or even simple Powerpoint presentations directly on the HP Palmtop!

Contents of this page:

About LXRTF

LXRTF is a software package which allows creation of formatted text on the HP DOS palmtops (100LX, 200LX, 1000CX, 700LX, 95LX).

LXRTF works the following way:

You write your document as a plain text file with simple formatting commands
You call LXRTF, which translates this file into the RTF format
The resulting RTF file can be opened in almost every text processing software on any operating system

RTF-compatible text processors are for example:

MS Word for Windows
MS Word for DOS
MS Word for Macintosh
Wordpad (coming with various versions of Windows)
OpenOffice
LibreOffice
KOffice
TextMaker
Mac OS text editor
..and many more.

Since version 1.2, LXRTF is even able to create RTF files compatible with MS PowerPoint. So it is now possible to prepare or even create simple MS PowerPoint presentations on the palmtop using LXRTF. Many thanks to Pavel Zampach for this great idea!

The high compatibility of the RTF format makes LXRTF the tool for anyone who needs to write formatted documents on the palmtop, which other people need to read on their Windows, UNIX or Mac computers.

LXRTF is designed to be as simple as possible while providing as many simple formatting features as possible. Sophisticated formatting such as mathematical formulas is not supported. If you need that, you should have a look at LXTeX (LaTeX for the HP palmtops).

In contrast to LXTeX, LXRTF is simple, fast, small and produces more compatible output.

Download, install and use LXRTF

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD LXRTF

Installation:
Unzip the big archive file. Then unzip the contained LXRTF12.ZIP file into a dedicated directory, for example into c:\lxrtf. The file lxrtf.bat is the central program file. You need about 70 kB of free disk space for LXRTF.

Usage: Usage is simple: Write the document (e.g. infile.rtx) with a simple text editor. Then execute LXRTF: The command

lxrtf infile.rtx outfile.rtf

produces the RTF file "outfile.rtf" from your input file "infile.rtx".

For detailed information about formatting in LXRTF, please read the file 0README.TXT and have a look at the example files coming with LXRTF. An example is shown below.

Version history

New in Release 1.2

Support for Powerpoint compatible RTF format (introducing stylesheets). New command *Yn for slide title / items.

New in Release 1.1

Bugfix: Command for font color changed from *C to *O (*C was accidentally assigned to two functions: Color and Center-aligning!)

LXRTF Frequently asked questions

Why do I have to use commands? Why isn´t there a simple user interface such as Word with buttons for bold text, italics, font selection...?

This is because LXRTF is simple "translation" software (or call it a compiler). Creating a GUI (graphical user interface) would be possible, but it would mean much more work than just write a compiler program.

Why not use existing software, such as MS-Word for DOS?

I have looked for existing software which does what I need, but didn´t find any program, which lets me create formatted output in a file format, which my colleagues can read on their MS-Windows / MS-Word systems without the need of importing the file and maybe install exotic import filters first. Even the files MS-Word for DOS creates cannot be directly opened by newer Versions of MS-Word for Windows without the need to isntall additional filters etc. Additionally, MS-Word for DOS is slow on the palmtop and not very convenient to use, in my opinion. So I wrote LXRTF, mainly for my own needs.

How can I check on the palmtop if the formatting looks as I want it to look?

You can´t. You could open the resulting RTF file in MS Word for DOS (version 6.0 supports RTF well, I don´t know about lower versions). But on the palmtop, MS-Word only shows a subset of the formatting which is possible with LXRTF, so the exact layout is not visible on the palmtop. I have not tried MS-Word 1.0 for Windows on Windows 3.0, which runs on the palmtop, albeit very slow. This could work, if that version of Word supports RTF and if all used fonts are installed. Still, text colors won´t be visible of course.

Example

The following example shows what LXRTF does. First you see the input file (plain text with formatting commands) and below there is a screenshot of the output LXRTF produces from the input file, opened in Microsoft Word. Each formatting command begins with an asterisk (*).

*F3 *FS20
{*IDaniel Hertrich}
*R{*IHauptstra\se 98*\
12345 Berlin*\
Tel. +49 12 3456789*\
Mobile: +49 765 4321987*\
Email: daniel.hxxxxxxh@mailprovider.de}



*L{*UTo:}*\
Jack Palmtopper*\
Hewlett Street 700*\
Packard, 20095 LX*\
United States of America



{*BSubject: LXRTF test}


*RDecember 14th, 2003
*LDear Mr Palmtopper,


Please find here an example letter created with *ILXRTF*i.
This letter is written in manual formatting mode, the \*\\ command
is used and several times also some consecutive blank lines.
Please read the {*F1 0readme.txt} file for details about this method
of formatting.

Formatting is fun now, and the result can be opened with
all modern versions of MS Word or other text processors.


Once this program works without hassles, I will
publish it on my homepage, e.g, under 
{*F1*C3http://www.daniel-hertrich.de/lxrtf} or so.

If you find any problems with the program, please report them
to me. My email address is mentioned in the header of this
letter. If it should be obsolete, please look at*\
{*F1*C3http://www.daniel-hertrich.de/contact}.


Kind regards,

Daniel Hertrich

Output in MS Word (Click on the screenshot to view a higher-resolution version of the screenshot):

LXTeX 2e - LaTeX 2e for the HP Palmtop

2009-10-20T11:10:48+00:00

Archived 2013-12-08
This page has been archived and some links may not work correctly anymore. No updates of this page will be done anymore.

Contents of this page:

About LXTeX 2e

The first steps to compose a distribution of LaTeX for the HP palmtops were done by Stephan Lüttjohann and Hans Hönen. They brought up a version of LaTeX 2.09 for the palmtop. Click here to get to Stephans´s site where LxTeX "version 1" can be downloaded.

LXTeX 2e is an adaption of emTeX (LaTeX 2e for DOS) made by me especially for the HP palmtops. You can use it on your palmtop if you have at least 6 MB free disk space. I recommend that you only run it on a double speed upgraded palmtop, otherwise the process of generation of fonts (by Metafont) is terribly slow (but it works on a single speed palmtop, too). On my double-speed palmtop it takes about 5 minutes to generate one font. But fortunately each font only has to be generated only once.

If LXTeX seems to be overkill for your needs (and LaTeX / LXTeX is hard to learn for someone who is used to graphical text processors like MS Word), have a look at LXRTF, which is a tool to generate Rich Text (RTF) files on the palmtop.

Download LXTeX 2e

CLICK HERE

Installation:
Unzip the downloaded big archive file and then unzip the contained LXTEX.ZIP. Afterwards:
Unzip the LXT2E13.ZIP file with the -d option (if you use PKUNZIP), so that all subdirectories are created.

Please read the README.TXT file in the main directory of the unzipped archive carefully: There you´ll find installing instructions, configuring instructions and a little guide how to use LXTeX2e. Additionally it contains the directory PRN_CONF, which includes batch and data files for different printers. By default LXTeX is configured to print to a Canon Bubblejet printer.

If you would like to get more information about the LaTeX system and its components, please read the numberous doc files that come with LaTeX (emTeX). They were included in the LXTeX ZIP file until version 1.1, now I have split it up into two files: LXT2E13.ZIP contains LXTeX with all needed files and EMTEXDOC.ZIP contains the relevant DOC files which come with emTeX. The files in the EMTEXDOC package are not needed to run LXTeX, i.e. do not have to be installed on the Palmtop.

LXTeX 2e additional packages

Here is a list of optional packeges you can install to get additional features.

DINBRIEF

- this is a stripped-down version of the DINBRIEF package made by University of Karlsruhe. It is a document class for German letters according to the DIN 676. With template, nice letter head and documentation. Unzip into an extra directory and read lxt_inst.txt. Click here to see how this document class with the letter-head look like (30 kB PNG graphic). The DINBRIEF package is included in the ZIP file you can download above.

LXTeX 2e Frequently asked questions

LXTeX is too complicated for me! I need a simpler solution to create professionally formatted text on the palmtop!

Take a look at LXRTF!

I do not know how to configure LXTeX so that it works...

Please read the README.TXT file, which comes with LXTeX. It describes most situations which can occur.

Using other printers than Canon BJ

If you have another printer than a Canon Bubblejet, for which LXTeX is preconfigured, please read section 3.6.2 (A:\EMTEX\BIN\PR.BAT) of the README.TXT. It describes how to change printer configuration. If your printer isn´t covered by the options of the DVI drivers, either look for a newer DVI driver or see if your printer can emulate one of the supported printers. If nothing like that is possible, you may as well use a PC LaTeX installation to print your files generated on the Palmtop. See below.

TeX capacity exceeded

If you get this error message, try to shorten some macros or maybe don´t use macros at all, rather include the full LaTeX command string defined by the macro everywhere you used the macro. Clumsy, but might help to avoid the error.

Metafont takes incredibly long to generate fonts! How to speed that up?

On a double-speed upgraded palmtop, Metafont takes about 5 minutes generating one font. See section 4.3.4 (Preview) in the README.TXT. You can avoid generation of most fonts if you put a font library file (*.FLI) into the %EMTEXDIR%\FONTS directory. Find the *_BASE.FLI file which suits your printer (if you only preview on the palmtop and don´t print at all, take the BJ_BASE.FLI, LXTeX comes preconfigured for this one). You can find the FLIs on ftp.dante.de.

I get the error message A program started an invalid instruction... and the palmtop locks up. What to do now?

This is a serious error which seems to be related to the palmtop´s light sleep mode. I tried to avoid occurence of that error by deactivating light sleep during Metafont runs in the batch files which come with LXTeX, since Metafont seems to be the only program having trouble with this. If you get this error in a reproducable way, please let me know, then we can try to work out a solution. This error usually needs a cold boot (Ctrl-Shift-On), since it locks up the palmtop entirely.

BIBTEX

If you install the original BIBTEX4b package, there are some important things you should pay attention to:

You can delete %EMTEXDIR%\BIN\BIBTEX32.EXE to save disk space
BIBTEX does not like light sleep mode (same problems as with Metafont)! So if you call BIBTEX, no matter if manually or via batch file, make sure to deactivate light sleep before BIBTEX is called (command setit lf) and reactivate it after BIBTEX ran (command setit lo). See how this is done for Metafont, called by the DVIDRV, in %EMTEXDIR%\BIN\PR.BAT or %EMTEXDIR%\BIN\VS.BAT.

I forgot to switch off the palmtop, and it didn't switch off itself, now batteries are empty and I lost valuable data!

The light sleep mode, and thus the power-off time-out of the palmtop are deactivated as soon as you start a DVIDRV (eit viewer or the printer driver). If printing or viewing is finished, light sleep is reactivated. Thus it is not safe to leave the palmtop alone while viewing a DVI file!! Quit the viewer, then go away!

Printing does not work!

The DVIDRV prints to the interface PRN, which is mapped to COM1 on the palmtop (BTW, also LPT1 seems to be mapped to COM1 automatically). With a serial printer, there should be no major problem, only make sure the baud rates are properly set, and handshaking is enabled (and, of course, that you use the correct DVI driver and fonts!)

If you have a parallel port printer, you need a serial -> parallel converter. Most cheaper converters are hard-wired to 9600 baud. More expensive ones can be configured via dip switches to different baud rates and different handshaking methods. I have done some tests with such a configurable one, and the results were, that fastest printing is possible with 57600 baud and XON/XOFF handshaking. To make the printer driver use the correct baud rate, set the SETCOM1 line in %EMTEXDIR%\BIN\PR.BAT correctly. Also read section 3.6.2 (PR.BAT) of the README.TXT which comes with LXTeX.

You can also try to add the option /ox+ to the dvidrv line in pr.bat. This option enables XON/XOFF handshaking.

Please see also my RS232 page, which talks about connecting devices (also printers) to the palmtop.

How can I print if I do not have a serial port printer or a serial to parallel converter?

There are some ways:

Use the printer connected to your desktop PC, connect the palmtop via serial cable to the desktop PC and run a program on the desktop PC which hands over data from the serial port directly to the parallel port. Such programs are e.g. OMNIPRN or COM2LPT. If you have a printer with an IrDA interface, try the IrDA DOS printer driver
Another approach might be to use the dvidot fax configuration to create a fax-format output and then use a fax program to "print" the output to a fax machine. All you need to create fax-formatted output is included with LXTeX 2e.

I often forget to enter LaTeX-specific codes for special characters, and LaTeX complains!

Simply add a search and replace tool which helps you to avoid such problems! I have, for example, the following lines in texedit.bat:

@echo off
echo calling editor...
pe %1.tex
echo converting Umlauts in %1.tex...
sed -f %EMTEXDIR%\bin\utility\conv_uml.sed %1.tex > %1.tmp
if errorlevel 1 pause
if errorlevel 0 copy %1.TMP %1.TEX
echo done.

i.e. after the editor has been exited, sed, the stream editor, is called using a sed script conv_uml.sed, which contains the sed commands to replace the umlauts. The sed script conv_uml.sed looks like this:

s/ä/"a/g
s/ö/"o/g
s/ü/"u/g
s/Ä/"A/g
s/Ö/"O/g
s/Ü/"U/g
s/ß/"s/g

All German Umlauts are thus replaced by their LaTeX German-package representation after each editing of the tex source file, i.e. if an ä is found, it is replaced by "a, ß is replaced by "s and so on. You need the stream editor sed for that task. It is available on the SUPER site. Simply put sed.exe into any utility directory on your palmtop which is in the PATH, or put it into %EMTEXDIR%\BIN\UTILITY. Actually, if you have the line \usepackage[cp850]{inputenc} (or as the number after "cp" whatever codepage you use on your palmtop) in your TEX source preamble, the Umlauts should be directly accepted in the input file, but the tex file would not be as portable anymore. And if you often switch codepages on your palmtop, you will probably get into trouble either. So the search and replace solution is better, in my opinion. And it is quite fast using sed.

I want to make a PDF file from my LXTeX document!

No problem, if you have access to a Linux or Windows computer: Put a \usepackage{times} into the tex file preamble, that is necessary because otherwise the Computer Modern fonts used by TeX had to be embedded as pixel fonts into the PDF file, and that looks ugly and blows up the PDF file in size. When using the times package, the Times fonts are used, which are Adobe standard fonts. Don't try to compile the tex file with \usepackage{times} on the palmtop - the times package is not installed there. Then put the tex source file onto the linux machine, do latex document.tex and then dvipdf document.dvi or dvipdfm docuent.dvi. This should give you an amazingly small good looking PDF file, readable with Acrobat Reader on any platform.

Mobile Phone compatibility with HP Palmtops

2009-10-22T08:35:26+00:00

Archived 2013-12-08
This page has been archived and some links may not work correctly anymore. No updates of this page will be done anymore.

How to connect your HP 200LX (or similar models) to a mobile phone for Internet access, sending fax, sending SMS or exchanging other data

Please note: This article is about 10 years old. It does not reflect the state of the art in mobile communication technologies anymore. Especially the section about the different mobile phones is outdated.

Contents of this page:

NEW: Nokia´s built-in SMS editor

How to send faxes with the palmtop

Security update for the fax setup (recommended!)

Related pages:

Introduction:

If you want to go online with your palmtop (HP 100LX, 200LX, 1000CX; the 700LX has this capability built-in, so this page is not relevant to the 700LX) using a mobile telephone network, you need a cellular phone. There are also PCMCIA cards that have a GSM modem built-in, e.g. the Nokia Card Phone), but as far as I know, all these cards don´t work in the palmtop, because they draw too much power from the PCMCIA slot (maximum is 150mA). Note that these cards are ´phones´ by themselves - I don´t speak about the cards that build a connection to a mobile phone. These cards may work - see below!

Now you have to decide, which cellular phone you´ll buy - nowadays there are lots of possibilities.
In general, there are three possibilities to connect a cellular phone as a modem to the palmtop.

via PCMCIA card
via serial cable
via infrared
via Bluetooth

(The fourth is not realizable yet, because of the lack of a bluetooth module for the palmtop. But hopefully some day we will have a serial port Bluetooth dongle for the palmtop, maybe even integrateable into the housing of the palmtop - see section "New Technologies").

All these possibilities have advantages and disadvantages:

1. Older phones often are only capable to connect to a computer via PCMCIA cards. These cards are expensive, and you have to sacrifice the only PCMCIA port of the palmtop. So you can´t use a memory or another PCMCIA card simultanously. Also you have to be SURE, that the PCMCIA card for the phone doesn´t draw too much power from the palmtop: 150 mA is the maximum. So don´t try to use a card that´s more power hungry, it could destroy your palmtop! Also make sure that it´s possible to talk to the data card as to a standard modem (that is, with the Hayes AT commands), otherwise all the standard communication software will have trouble!
Somebody reported that the Nokia data card with an older Nokia phone works well.

2. A serial cable connection is a very reliable connection, but the phone has to have a serial data port. Also you have to buy a data cable (most of them are pretty expensive) and use the HP connectivity cable, a null modem adapter and this data cable; all three in series. This combo would be quite bulky.
Another alternative is to make a data cable by yourself. It´s not that easy, because you cannot simply connect a few pins of the phone´s port to some pins of the palmtop´s port. The cable has to inculde some active electronic parts, because all phones I know use other signal voltages than the standard RS 232 ports. I described how to make such a cable for the Siemens S25 phone on another page. This cable also works for the Siemens S35i, C35i and M35i phones. The advantage of such a self-made cable is that you can make it as long as you prefer and because you don´t have to carry around three different parts for the cable. A third option is to make a short HPLX-to-DB9 adapter which you can plug into the LX and which you can directly connect the bought data cable to. Pleas have a look on my HPLX RS232 page. There you can find more details about a serial connection via data cable.
If you plan to make a cable for another phone than the Siemens ones that I mentioned above, please do a search on the web to find the various sites that describe cables for other phones. Maybe other phones need different electronics between the palmtop´s RS232 port and the phone´s data port.
You can use cable connections with all kinds of communication software that talks over serial port to a modem. A simple terminal emulation, like the built-in Datacomm, an internet package like WWW/LX, LXTCP or Nettamer, pppd, sshdos, Goin Postal... please have a look into the Software section of this page!

3. If you want to connect the phone and the palmtop via Infrared, be aware that that there exist two very bad problems:

The palmtop´s IR port is not IrDA compatible by itself
The palmtop´s IR port is heavily disturbed by the electromagnetic field that surrounds the phone´s antenna

For the first problem exists a very good solution called WWW/LX. At the moment, WWW/LX is the only software for the palmtop that can talk to an IrDA phone and use it as a modem. WWW/LX is a software package, made by D&A Software, that includes an IP stack (WWW/LX), an email and news client (Post/LX with News/LX) and a web browser (HV). WWW/LX is a commercial product. You can buy it either directly from D&A Software or (preferrably if you live in Europe) from Thomas Rundel in Germany. Of course, WWW/LX also works with serial cable connections, PCMCIA connections, PCMCIA analog modems, PCMCIA ISDN cards and Ethernet cards.

For the second problem, there is unfortunately no soultion by now. You have to live with it and try to find work-arounds. See the list of phones below to see how bad a phone causes this problem and how it may be avoided. If you want to learn more about this problem, and maybe even can help to solve it, please see my EMI problem page! In general, every phone causes this problem when it is used with the LX via IR. Some phones produce less interference, some more.

Make sure your cellular network provider allows data calls! Maybe you have to ask them to provide this service to you, maybe you even have to pay for it. I recommend that you make this clear before you decide which phone to buy, because maybe you want to change your network provider when you see that you have to pay too much money for data calls. :-)

Note that as far as I know all WAP capable phones have a built-in modem, so if you have a phone that´s WAP capable, it´s quite sure that you can use it as a modem. It only depends on if the modem is usable from out of the phone - either via serial cable or via IR.

By the way: For those who have had troubles with Windows 98 and IrDA because of these strange "virtual" devices Windows 98 sets up, please read my IrDA page!

Short phone overview

To give you a first idea which phone brand may be suitable for your needs, I give you a short overview here with the most important features and drawbacks of the three biggest phone brands: Nokia, Siemens and Ericsson. This overview is only relevant to newer phones, not for phones which are older than approximately two years. This is due to the technical improvements which come with time. For more detailled information please read the big phone list below.

Nokia phones are good for you if you need much compatibility, love bells and whistles (like ring tones, pictures, games...), want to use IrDA for a palmtop connection, don´t need a data cable connection and if you don´t always need the latest technology, but rather a quite reliable and well designed product. Well, some people say, Nokia phones are not at all reliable. Software is buggy and crashes often. I cannot comment on that, since I have never used a Nokia phone.
Siemens phones are your choice if you donot want to use IrDA for a palmtop connection (except for SMS sending, which works very well), but rather like cable connections. Siemens phones are also technically very well designed and are fairly easy to use due to a sophisticated and easy to understand menu system. I even think they are mechanically more robust than any other phones.
Ericsson phones offer (at least these days - end of 2001) the best support of new technologies like bluetooth and high speed / packet data services while keeping prices low. IrDA works flawlessly, cable connections should also be possible without problems (although this has not been tested extensively, because IrDA works so well). If your phone doesn´t need to have the best look and feel (Ericsson makes very good technology, but in my opinion a rather poor design) and if you tend to play with new features (serious ones, not games, multimedia and so on), consider buying an Ericsson phone! Also, Ericsson phones are very robust compared to Nokia or Siemens phones.

List of phones and their features:

Please note that I don´t have any interest in advertising for one of the companies whose phones I describe. The following list is intended to be as unbiased as possible, describing advantages and disadvantages of each phone. Since I rely on reports of users whose experiences I publish here, there may be errors in the following list. But these errors don´t have anything to do with my private opinion or interests. The same is true for the software I describe. I myself use only the Siemens S35i and D&A Software´s ´WWW/LX´.

Siemens phones:

General notes:
Siemens phones are generally (in my opinion) very well designed phones, the menu structure is easy to understand and they are customizeable, so that often used functions are easily accessable and only the less often ones are hidden inside the complex menu structures. However, one drawback applies to all Siemens phones: They have a low-power IrDA interface. That saves battery life of course, but it makes IrDA connections for Internet access with the 200LX almost impossible. It may work for some specific combinations and situations, but usually you have more problems than you want to have. Thus, if you want to use WWW/LX with your phone and use IrDA rather than a data cable, I cannot recommend you to buy a Siemens phone.

Siemens S25: IrDA port, wired port, no WAP, data connection speed limited to 9600 bps.

My self-made data cable works without any problem. The baud rate of the S25's wired port is fixed to 19200.
Note: If your cellular network provider supports V.110 connections (=ISDN) you can use the init string "ATB29" and the dial string "ATDI<number>". You will then get a CONNECT as soon as you dialed, so you have to wait abt. 15 seconds less until you have a working connection. The connection speed isn't increased by this, though.

Siemens C35i and M35i: wired port, WAP, no IrDA port, connection speed limited to 9600 bps

More information here.

Comments: Works without problems with my self-made data cable (tested) and any communication software.

Siemens S35i: IrDA port, wired port, WAP, connection speed limited to 9600 bps

More information here.

Comments: My self-made data cable works without any problem. The best IR-eye-to-eye-distance for IrDA communication is abt. 18-20 cm says Günther, who bought this phone in May 2000. He also says, when he wraps the S35i with aluminium foil (and leaves a hole for the IR, of course), he can even establish an internet connection without any EMI errors. However, I still get errors with aluminium foil. The baud rate of the S35i's wired port is fixed to 19200.
Here the ISDN connection init string works, too, see comments of the S25!
For further questions you can contact guenthereisele@yahoo.de.

Siemens S40: IrDA port, wired port, WAP, supports HSCSD up to 57600 bps

More information here.

Comments: Nothing known about compatibility to the 200LX, since no one has tested it by now.
Since this phone is actually designed by Bosch, it differs in general from all the other Siemens phones. So IrDA may work. It has yet to be tested.
HSCSD is not supported through the IrDA interface, so you need a data cable to make use of the higher data rates of HSCSD. And unfortunately, the data cable port of the phone is not compatible to the S35i and S25 (and S45).

Siemens SL45: IrDA port, wired port, WAP, MP3-Player, connection speed limited to 9600 bps (no HSCSD, no GPRS)

More information here.

Comments: Nothing known about compatibility to the 200LX, since no one has tested it by now.
I have heard that the data cable port of the SL45 is compatible to the S35i / S25 port. Can anyone please confirm that? Can the same data cables be used?

Siemens S45 and ME45: IrDA port, wired port, WAP, GPRS

More information here.

Comments: Nothing known about compatibility to the 200LX, since no one has tested it by now.
But these phones are the real successors of the S25 / C25 - S35 / C35 / M35 line, so I think compatibility should not be a problem. At least the data cable port is compatible.

Ericsson phones:

For older Ericsson phones (e.g. the T28s) there exist IrDA dongles. One user reported that such a dongle worked in combination with the CF788 phone and the Palmtop. I don´t know if these older phones have the possibility to attach a data cable, but since the IrDA dongle has to be connected somewhere to the telephone, I think they have. And in this case the question remains, if such a dongle would be a real advantage compared to a data cable.... For use with the palmtop it wouldn´t, I think. But on the other side some of the Ericsson phones use the IrDA protocol also over the wired port. The only software that would be able to use these IrDA-speaking Ericsson phones at all (either over cable or over IR) would be the WWW/LX suite by D&A Software, since this is the only software which is able to use the IrDA protocol (even via the data cable, set the parameters port=-1 and IR=0 in this case in the www.cfg).

So far I can say that the following Ericsson phones don´t use IrDA over the wired serial port, so they are also usable with other software than WWW/LX:
the R380 (the one with the big touchscreen under the keyboard)
the R520 (GPRS, HSCSD, IrDA, Bluetooth, big size)
the T39m (GPRS, HSCSD, IrDA, Bluetooth, small size) and
the R320s (see below).
If you plan to send or receive faxes with your phone, take care: Some Ericsson phones cannot handle faxes. This feature is explicitly diabled in these models. So read the features lists carefully!
There are now even different kinds of Ericsson data cables available. The old one, the DRS-10, misses the DCD line (about DCD: see my RS232 page), so some software can have problems (e.g. Goin´ Postal). The new cable, DRS-11, has a new chip inside, the MAX3386 (instead of the MAX3232). And it has the DCD line. You can also build your own data cable as described here. That self-made data cable has an "emulated" DCD line (always high) which works with Goin"e; Postal.

Ericsson R320s: IrDA port, WAP, I don´t know about wired port and connection speed limit

More information here

Comments: works via IR with the LX. Not extensively tested yet, but I´ll soon provide more information
For further questions you can contact Martin Bergvill or/and ebbeh@online.no

Ericsson SH888 and I888:

The phones only differ in their look and the I888 uses 900 MHz and 1900 MHz, the SH888 uses 900 MHz and 1800 MHz. So they should work exactly identically in combination with the palmtop.
These phones are known to use the IrDA protocol through the wired port.

IrDA port, wired port (speaks IrDA!!, comment see above), no WAP, connection limited to 9600 baud.
More information here.

Comments: This phone is reported to work well with the palmtop via IrDA. But be aware that this phone is a quite old one, so its features are probably not up-to-date anymore. The best IR-eye-to-eye distance is reported to be about 30 cm. Another user reported that 10-15 cm is a good distance.
For further questions about SH888 you can contact ebbeh@online.no and office@praktiker.at

Ericsson I888:

Here's the report of an I888 owner: Using the WWW/LX suite I have succeeded in exchanging emails, phone books and SMS while connected over IrDA to the I888. I get about 25 Character lost for 100kB of information exchanged. I can position the I888 from 30cm to 1 meter away from the 200LX with no apparent difference in transmission quality.
One additional note: SMS reception via PDU need a special switch which Stefan Peichl was kind enough to include in the latest PDU release.
For further questions about the I888 you can contact leurquin@bigfoot.com

NEW: Ericsson T39m and T68: IrDA port, WAP 1.2.1, Bluetooth, HSCSD, GPRS, triband, voice record, and it is very small!

More information here

The T39m and the T68 are basically the same, only the design is different. But technically and from the palmtop point of view, they are identical.

Martin Bergvill reports: The T39m has the size of a credit card+arial and weights 86 gram. I have used it for a couple of days and I must say that I am impressed. The supplied battery (which uses the new LiPolymer technology) has a standby time of max. 300 hours. The special big battery has a standby time of 700 hours!
Regarding the EMI problem: I have tested with Ring.com. If I have the HPLX and the T39m about 5cm apart I get disturbances. Abive that I get no disturbance at all!

I have got HSCSD to work with the AT string ATZ+cbst=0,0,1;+chsn=4,2,0,12 with 38400 baud.
GPRS also works with WWW/LX, but due to a firmware bug in the T39m/T68, you need a modified version of WWW/LX v3 to make it work. Please ask the people at D&A Software for that version.

Nokia phones:

General note: The Nokia phones´ IrDA ports have in general a very much larger working range than the IrDA ports made by Siemens. So you can work around the EMI problem here by keeping a distance of abt. 30 cm between the IrDA port of the phone and the infrared port of the palmtop.

For data cable users: Nokia currently offers two different kinds of data cables. The one you need is the DLR-3P! Don´t buy any other cable, since the other cables won´t work with the palmtop! Can anyone tell me if the DLR-3 works, too?
Ressources for nokia data cables: Selfmade DLR-3P, Nobbi´s Datenkabel Seite (German).

Nokia 61xx: No serial port, only usable as a modem with optional PCMCIA card or with a GSM-Nota cable

More information here (6110).
More information here (6150).

All phones of the Nokia 61xx-series don´t work on a direct way with the LX as a modem, because they don´t have a built-in modem. Some models (I think all non-US models) have an IR port, but this is only for data exchange between phones or for use with a Windows-Software. So none of these phones works as a modem for the LX! You can use (some of?) them as a modem for a Windows machine, if you use the Windows software modem called "Nokia cellular data suite". There´s no chance to make this work on the LX via infrared!

But there are two ways to to use the Nokia 6110 or 6150 as a modem: One solution is to use an optional PCMCIA card. There is a manufacturer called OPTION who makes such PCMCIA cards. There are probably other manufacturers, too. One person reported success using an OPTION card with a Nokia 6110 as a modem for the HP LX. If you have questions about this OPTION PCMCIA card and how to make it work with the HP Palmtops please contact pierrot@palmtop.com.

The other solution is the "GSM-Nota" cable. A user reports: "I use my Nokia 6110 with my HP200LX with the aid of something called a GSM-Nota cable. It's basically a cable with a small battery powered matchbox sized adapter box stuck in the middle of it. One end plugs into the phone and the other plugs into the serial port of the HP. They're very popular in the Psion world and usually are sold with a Psion compatible serial connector on the end. I discovered that the company that makes them also makes them with a standard 9 pin serial connection which I then connect it to the HP using the Connectivity cable and the null-modem adaptor. The cable then makes the Nokia respond to standard Hayes-AT commands. It works for SMS messaging (Stefan Peichl has incorporated compatibility for the GSM-Nota into PDU.COM at my request), address book and for data. It is a superb solution for those of us stuck with the Nokia 61xx series.

You can find out more about the GSM-Nota at http://www.idware.fr and http://www.exportech.co.uk (the guys I bought mine from)."

If you have further question about the GSM-Nota cable please contact surreal@compuserve.com.

Nokia 6210: IrDA port, wired port, WAP, connection speed up to 14.400 bps, with HSCSD up to 43.200 bps

More information here.

Comments from a user:
I can now say that the combination of the Nokia6210 and HP200/WWWLX3-Post works very well (as well of course the cable link). I have actually very little EMI-disturbances but sometimes there is the message after the run of: "xxx bytes lost/fram error/GSM disturbance(?)). As you write the distance can be rather long between the IR-ports which reduces the problem. I have also succesfully installed PDU which works well too integrated in the PostLX.
For further questions please contact jacob.waern@swipnet.se. Regarding HSCSD, please have a look at the HSCSD section.

Nokia 6310: IrDA port, wired port?, WAP 1.2.1, GPRS, HSCSD and Bluetooth

More information here.

Comments: Works at least via IrDA with the 200LX and WWW/LX for GSM and HSCSD Internet connections.

Nokia 5610: IrDA port, wired port?, WAP 1.2.1, GPRS, HSCSD and FM Radio

More information here.

Comments: Works at least via IrDA with the 200LX and WWW/LX for GSM and HSCSD Internet connections. GPRS not tested yet.

Nokia 7110 / 7110e: IrDA port, wired port, WAP, provides data connection speed of up to 14400 bps (depends on network provider if it´s usable or not)

More information here.

Comments: Tested via IrDA with WWW/LX. The optional data cable is called ´DLR-3´ but was not tested yet.
The phone stores SMSs on both the SIM card and the phone´s internal memory, so it takes a lot of SMSs. The Robot/LX script that allows you to send / reply SMSs via the LX is now adapted to this special storing behaviour.
It´s also possible to transmit entries of the LX´s phonebook as a vcard to the 7110 / 7110e via IR. The tool you need for this is called IR.EXE and is available from ftp.dasoft.com. With phone software version 4.84 and above there should be no problems. The version 4.73 has got problems.
For further questions please contact Martin Bergvill.

Please note: There are several versions of data cables for the Nokia 6210 available, some of them only work with special Windows software to upload logos and ring tones and to send SMSs. Be sure that you have an original Nokia DLR-3P cable. This seems to be the only one which works with standard software.

Nokia 8210: IrDA port, wired port is also present (under the battery), no WAP, data connection speed is limited to 14400 bps (depends on network provider)

More information here.

Comments: Read the comments of Nokia 8810!
Someone found the circuit diagram for a data cable for the 8210. Here is the pinout of the 8210's wired port and here you can see the circuit diagram for an MBUS datacable. But note that the MBUS cable is as far as I know not the one you need for a modem connection! Please refer to the links above in the general notes for a universal data cable which may also work for the 8210.

The 8210 is reported to work only reliably at 38400 baud via IR.With a lower baud rate, there seem to be problems with html and news. Notwith email. So maybe you should test it before you buy. Note that you need a double-speed upgraded palmtop for reliable connections at 38400 baud!
For an ISDN connection (V110) you can use the init string "AT&F+CBST=71,0,1". This will result in a much faster "CONNECT" than with the normal connection protocol. This only works, if your cellular network provider supports ISDN connections. Note that an ISDN connection will NOT increase the speed, only the CONNECT will be done abt. 15 seconds faster.
Maybe, if your net provider supports it, you can use a 14400 baud data connection, if you use the init string "AT&F+CBST=14,0,1". Try it!

For further questions please contact stora.my@spray.se.

Nokia 8810: IrDA port, no wired port, no WAP, data connection speed limited to 38400 bps (says the prospect - but which network does support that?? )

More information here.

You have to switch the 8810 off and on again after an IrDA online run, because the software (V. 4.05) has a bug. I don´t know if this bug is removed in newer software versions. If you don´t do this ´reboot´, the next IrDA online run won´t work properly.

Nokia 8850 / 8890: IrDA port, I don´t know about wired port, no WAP, data connection speed limited to 9600 bps

More information here.

Comments: Not tested yet, but should work just as the other newer Nokia phones.

Nokia Orange 5.1 (old phone, the same as Nokia 2110?) wired port or PCMCIA card necessary, no WAP, no other ports, connection speed limit 9600 baud.

Sorry, I didn´t find any URL providing more info about this phone!

Comments: Tested with WWW/LX. No problems known. For further questions please contact aj93@dial.pipex.com.

Motorola phones:

Motorola i1000plus / i500plus / i700plus: wired port, no IrDA, no WAP, don´t know about connection speed limit

Comments: works with HP connectivity cable, null modem adapter (either HP or Motorola) and Motorola´s data cable which comes with a whole kit which includes Windows software and a manual. But for the LX you only need the data cable from this kit.
You have to use a special initialization string for making it work as a modem for the LX: AT&FX4.
The phone i1000plus was tested with Goin´ Postal and WWW/LX. Since the two other phones have the same internal modem, they should also work as the i1000plus does. For further questions about the i10000plus you can contact evilla@terra.com.pe.

Motorola Timeport: wired serial port, IrDA?

There are more than one Motorola phone which are called "timeport". I don't know anything about them, but if you can provide informations, please don't hesitate to do so.

For further questions you can contact citroen@stad.dsl.nl and/or gnassi@attglobal.net.

Another user wrote:
"I can confirm that the Motorola Timeport L7089 (the one without the WAP browser) works fine with the HP200LX over IRDA. I haven't been able to purchase a serial cable - they are very hard to find. The only thing that doesn't work over IRDA is sending a fax. It apparently does work over a cable but I can't confirm this."
If you have further questions please contact surreal@compuserve.com

Motorola Startac 85596A (analogue): works with AAPEX Data ClipperCom World V.34 data fax 33.6 PC card modem.

This modem is a PCMCIA card modem that combines a normal landline 33.6 modem with a cellular modem. You have to make a special cable in order to get both to work together.

If you have further questions about this combo, please email palmtop@ihug.co.nz.

Sagem phones:

General information (by Radek Svagr):

Nearly all Sagem phones (including older 7xx and 8xx series) have an internal modem. But, and this is also the case for the 930, it is blocked in software. So when you buy the phone, it doesn´t support Data/Fax modes; you can handle SMS and phone book transfers only. But it is quite easy to activate the modem so you will get a better phone (higher models lie 840 or 940 have an already adtivated modem, but they are more expensive of course).
One method how to tune the Sagem phones is described on http://www.volny.cz/sagemak. It is quite simple and you can activate more features than a modem (memory for 50 SMS, 35 own melodies, 200 phone book entries etc...). Tuning software is on http://www.sagem.de.vu. The cable is common type with MAX232 or very simple with 2 Transistors which I use without problem. Schematics for this cable are available here:
Connector of the Sagem phones
Data cable with MAX232
Simple data cable with transistors
The parts will fit into an RS232 connector.
Personally I tested the following models: MC840, MC930, MW930, MW936.

Note: As everywhere are exceptions, as far as I know, series 91x and 92x of Sagem phones seem to have no modem. Also I don´t know about the new 3xxx models, but they support AT commands so they probably have a modem.

Sagem MW (MC) 930: Wired port, communication speed limit: 9600 (GSM), serial port spped with PC adjustable from 2400 to 19200 bps, using a tuning software up to 38400 bps. Supports V.110 (ISDN). WAP browser in MW series.

Before you start communicate with the modem, you must press C on the phone, because the modem goes into sleep mode after a few seconds of inactivity. If you have further questions about Sagem phones, please contact Radek Svagr

other phones

Bosch 908: wired port, no IrDA

No URL found. Try www.bosch.de

Comments: Tested with WWW/LX and ACCIS4. No problems known. If you have further questions, please contact lassekarlsson@mail.com.

LG InfoComm TM510 wired port, triband.

More information here

Comments: The proprietary fax/data transfer kit (79.99 US$, according to a zdnet review) is needed, it contains a cable with a box in the middle. This box contains the electronics and an additional phone port, which you can probably connect the charger or a headset to, even while using the data cable. For the connection to the palmtop you need the HP connectivity cable and an additional null modem adapter (see my HPLX RS232 page)

If you have further questions please contact Mike Kopplin.

CDPD modems and phones:

The following info has been provided by Bruce M. (an HPLX mailinglist member):

CDPD devices which are known to work with the HP 200LX:

Mitsubishi T250
Novatel Wireless Sage
Motorola Personal Messenger 100C (discontinued)

I expect that the following would also work:

PCSI Ubiquity 2000
Uniden Data 2000
Tellus Monarch

About the CDPD service:

CDPD exists since about 1996 in the US. The service uses the same frequency as the analog cell phone system called AMPS that was the first and is the most widely deployed cellular system in the US. Rather than using an analog telephone to dial in to an ISP, however, when a CDPD modem is activated, it joins the network much as an 802.11 wireless modem would join a wireless LAN. But the speed is much lower, with a theoretical bidirectional throughput of 19.2kb/s (typically more like 9.6kb/s in practice), and the first-hop round-trip latency is typically between 0.5s and 1.5s. The two biggest CDPD networks in the US belong to Verizon and AT&T. Verizon covers nearly the entire northeastern part of the US.
Thanke, Bruce, for the info!

If you can provide more information that is relevant here, please drop me an email with as much of information as you can provide! I´ll then publish it here. It was great if you allowed me to publish even your email address as I did it above with some email addresses of phone users.

Test with different phones connected to the HP 200LX:

Here you can see a posting of Jaques Belin to the HPLX mailing list. He tested several phones with the HP 200LX using different pieces of software. This is a very good review, especially if you are planning to buy a new mobile phone and if you know what software you will use.

Read the review (ASCII text file)

How to send and receive SMS with the Palmtop:

You can not only use the cellular phone as a modem, but you can also write your SMS on the palmtop and then send it with the phone and use the palmtop as a huge archive of received SMSs. Stefan Peichl and Tony Hutchins cooperated in developing PostPDU, which is a plugin for Post/LX for very convenient SMS handling. It is based on Stefan Peichl´s PDU.COM, which converts text messages to a format the phone can handle. PDU.COM can also be used as a stand-alone program if you use a data cable. If you use IrDA, you have to use WWW/LX with Post/LX (and preferably also Post/PDU).
PostPDU even supports splitting large messages up into more smaller ones (max. 160 characters) and it supports mass SMS, i.e. you can give multiple telephone numbers in the To: field and the SMS is send to all these numbers.
The clue: You don´t even need a registered version of WWW/LX to use Post/PDU. Since the demo version of WWW/LX is limited to 16kB data transmission per session, and since SMS does not need much of that, you can easily send and receive many SMSs per session (exact amount not known, but I estimate it to be abt. 40 SMSs per session)!
For download of the needed components, click here. You need the packages WWW/LX, Post/LX, Robot/LX and PostPDU.

Nokia´s built-in SMS editor

Thanks to Niels Keetlaer from Holland for this tip:

By my information all Nokia phones do have a build-in sms-editor. (I mean, not the editor one can use to enter messages from the phone, but an editor which can be reached when a serial link is established). I have only tested this with my 2110 which came with my 700lx for I do not have [access to] any other 'wired' Nokia phone. It is faily easy to access this editor. First you need to setup the physical link (doh) by dock the nokia into your 700lx or plug in a cable or use it's infrared capabilities if possible. Open this connection, you can use any terminal(program) as long it's euhm.. well normal [and can handle serial links]. Usually you will gain access to the modem (you might be accessing via a modem card, like I do with my 700lx) and can give the usual AT commands. There is an AT command to enter the SMS-editor, which is AT*C. Now the phone will go into an SMS-editor and will no longer accept any AT commands until you exit the editor. You can get help by entering HELP (how suprising). EXIT exits (suprised?). I don't know much more for I have never really used this. [the build in app in my 700lx is way easier to use...] Nice thing to know when using the 700lx: You can connect to the modem, even when the phone is turned off. You can try stuff, eg. ATDT(phone number) which results in a NO CARRIER. Unknown commands will result in 'ERROR', and so will AT*C when the phone is turned off. You really have to turn on the phone (and wait a little while) before the AT*C command works.

How to send faxes with your palmtop

In general, it is not possble at all to send a fax via infrared. This is because WWW/LX and IR.EXE are the only programs which support the IrDA protocol, and no fax software can interoperate with WWW/LX or IR.EXE. This implies also that you cannot use these strange Ericsson phones which use the IrDA protocol even on the wired port.

So you only can send faxes written on the palmtop with your mobile phone, if you have a data cable. (Exception: There are SMS to fax gateways available, so you can send an SMS to a special gateway number, the gateway converts your SMS into a fax and forwards it to the fax machine you have addressed in your SMS. Ask your cellphone service provider for the correct gateway number and be aware that your faxes will be limited to about 150 characters!)

Once you have a working palmtop - data cable - mobile phone connection (test with a terminal emulation, send an AT and look if you get back an OK), you can begin to set up a fax program on your palmtop. I recommend bgfax in conjuction with 2bgfax, which enables you to add a hand-written signature to your fax. If you want a simpler setup, you can use qfax. Or you use my special setup:

I have a combination of 2bgfax and qfax running on my palmtop, controlled by a single batch file "lxfax.bat". This combination lets me simply call "lxfax filename", then opens a text editor with a fax template (sender information, receiver information, fax header, signature). I can then write the fax text, close the text editor saving the file, lxfax calls 2bgfax to convert the text file to a fax file and then calls qfax, which sends the fax.

Here is my lxfax.bat file:

@echo off
REM LXFAX.BAT written by Daniel Hertrich 08-31-00
set faxpath=c:\fax
if not "%faxpath%"=="c:\fax" then goto error
if "%1"=="" goto error
c:
cd %faxpath%
copy templ1.fxt %1.txt
:editfax
pe %1.txt
2fax %1.txt 000new.fax
view /cga /p26 /A4 /MO 000new.fax
choice /c:se Send fax or Edit once more
if errorlevel 2 goto editfax
setcom1 6nw
echo.
echo Next choose 000new.fax as file to be faxed, enter fax number and
echo choose "FAX" as file type! Then "SEND".
echo.
pause
%faxpath%\qfax
setcom1 o
move %1.txt sent /-Y
move 000new.fax sent\%1.fax /-Y
goto end
:error
echo ERROR!!!
:end

As you see, you need the additional utility "setcom1" by Stefan Peichl. This is needed to set the COM port parameters to the correct values in order to let qfax talk to your phone. Which setcom1 parameters you really need depends on your phone, the "setcom1 6nw" works for the Siemens phones (19200 baud, n81). The second call of setcom1 switches the COM port off again.
Here PE.EXE is used as the text editor.

You need the following files out of the bgfax, 2bgfax and qfax packages (bgfax and 2bgfax can be found on www.hp200lx.net (search "bgfax"), qfax is available for download here (be sure to download the palmtop version!).

2fax.cnf
2fax.exe
2fax.fnt
qfax.cfg
qfax.exe
qfaxconf.exe
qfrec.exe (if you want to receive faxes)
reg.dat
view.exe

Throw these files into the directory c:\fax (if you want to use another path than I used, you only have to adjust lines 3, 4 and maybe 6 (drive) of the above mentioned lxfax.bat file), create a subdirectory c:\fax\sent, there all sent faxes will go, and edit qfax.cfg. CommPort and InitString have to be set there. CommPort must be 1 and InitString is set to AT&F&C1&D2 here, which works for the Siemens S35i.

Also create a file templ1.fxt which holds your fax template. Mine looks like this:

FROM: Daniel Hertrich                                             Address line 1
                                                                  Address line 2
                                                                  GERMANY
                                                                  Phone number
                                                                  Fax numer
                                                                  Email

TO:       [Receiver]

SUBJECT:  [Subject]

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Sir or Madam,



[here goes the text]


Kind regards

.INCLUDE:0,sign.pcx
Daniel Hertrich

The .INCLUDE command tells 2fax to insert the sign.pcx file here, which holds my hand-written signature as a black-and-white pcx graphic.
The template file and the pcx also have to be in the c:\fax directory.

Well, having all that prepared, I can now, whereever I am in DOS,

enter bgfax name , where name is a file name without file extension as which the sent fax should be stored in c:\fax\sent, then

edit my text file entering all needed informtion,

leave the editor saving the text file, then

2fax will convert the text file with the included PCX file to a FAX file and

the batch will open view.exe.

Choose 000new.fax to preview the fax and

when finished leave view.exe with ESC.

You will then be asked if the fax is okay and shall be sent, or if you want to edit it once more.

If you choose Send, qfax is started.

Select 000new.fax as the file to be sent,

enter the receiver fax number,

choose "fax" as input file format and

press "send".

Simply press enter if qfax asks for your registration number.

Security update: Added 08-sept-2001:

In order to protect this fax setup against abuse (your signature PCX file could be the key for criminals to get access to all your money!), you can put the signature PCX files on an encrypted drive, which you can create for example with "Secure Device".
Say, your signature file now is on the encrypted drive F:. You have to change the following things of your fax setup:

Put a "login f" (if you use secure device) into lxfax.bat, before the line ":editfax", to let 2fax get access to the signature file on F:.
Put a "logout f" (if you use secure device) into lxfax.bat, before the "goto end" line, in order to re-protect the encrypted drive when you are finished.
Change the .INCLUDE directive in the fax template to use f:\sign.pcx instead of sign.pcx
Add the line "if not exist f:\sign.pcx goto error" directly after the "login f" line, so you will get an error message (first a "drive not ready", and then an "ERROR"), if you have misspelled your passphrase, otherwise 2fax may run into problems, if the file is not available at processing time.
replace the line "move 000new.fax sent\%1.fax /-Y " by "del 000new.fax" in order to delete the ready-made fax file, which includes the signature. So only the txt file will be saved in the archive folder. You can recreate the fax file everytime you need it by invoking the 2fax command (2fax sent/txt_file fax_file).

Now you have to enter your secdev pass phrase everytime you start lxfax, only if you have entered the pass phrase correctly, 2fax will be able to access the signature file and insert your signature into the document.

How to synchronize a mobile phone with the HPLX (phone book, organizer etc.)

The phone book / contacts / vcard

There are several ways to send phone book entries or even the whole phone book from your phone to the LX or vice versa.
In general, you can use every terminal emulation to do that, because the exchange of phone book entries can be controlled by AT commands. Lists of AT commands for the different phones can be found below (section "AT commands").

In order to down- or upload a whole phone book automatically, you have to use a scripting language which can be used within such a terminal emulation. The simplest way is to use Robot/LX together with WWW/LX. There is a robot script available (phone.scr) which can do exactly this: Download or upload a whole phone book, either from / to SIM card memory or from / to internal phone memory. If you use WWW/LX and Robot/LX, this works either via cable or via IrDA. A standard terminal emulation can of course only be used via cable due to its lack of IrDA support.
This way of exchanging the whole phone book has been tested by me on the Siemens S35i with success, but I had to comment out the lines 10..15 of phone.scr ("select memory" and "set character set"), otherwise it didn´t work properly.

If you only want to exchange single contacts between the phone and the palmtop, the simplest way is to use the OBEX protocol, which is implemented into the free(!) software IR.EXE by D&A Software. Every IrDA capable phone should support OBEX. This works only via IrDA, and you don't need a license of WWW/LX for that.
Please note that with my Siemens S35i, this procedure doesn´t work for some reason. Maybe it is my fault, maybe the phone doesn´t support it. But Martin Bergvill has had success with his Nokia 6210.
OBEX (=object exchange) exchanges, as the name says, objects. In the case of contacts this is a vcard object, which holds the contacts data of one person.

In general wou will want to do the following:
Mark a plamtop phone book entry, export it as vcard, start IR.EXE to send this vcard to the phone.
Or, in the other direction:
Mark an entry in the phone´s phone book, choose in the phone´s menu "send as vcard via IrDA", start IR.EXE on the palmtop to receive the vcard, import the vcard into the phone book of the palmtop.

You will probably ask now, how a vcard looks like, and how the phone book of the palmtop can ceonvert entries from / to vcard. There ist the great capability of the palmtop´s built-in applications to define so-called "smart clips" (see palmtop manual). Martin Bergvill wrote the following report:

"Some backgroundinfo. I had a Nokia 7110 and I wanted to transfer what I had in my phonebook on the Hplx to the phone. The 7110 supports more info under each nameentry, but most new phones on the market supports Vcard in some way.

I found some info on how Vcards are supposed to look like and I went to "work". I used ir.exe made by Andreas Garzotto.

I first added a Smartclip I called "Vcard" in the phonebook on the Hplx:

The Vcard smartclip looks like this:

If you have a cellphone that does not support more numbers/info per name then your Smartclip should only have this info:

BEGIN:VCARD
N:>Namefield<
TEL:>Phonefield you want transferred< END:VCARD

(My Hplx phonebook has been modified. I have added a field for email and also some more fields. I have two fields for Worknumbers/Jobbnummer. That is why my Smartclip looks the way it does. The 7110 also has room for emailaddress/address/notefield. See mybook.gif).

When the Smartclip was ready I made a macro that chooses the Vcard Smartclip in the phonebook and then copies the info to the clipboard and opens Memo and paste it there. Then the macro saves the file.

My macro looks like this:

You have to write your own macro so that it chooses the correct Smartclip in you phonebook.
What I do I just selects/highlight the entry I want to transfer and then hit Fn+F1. The macro does all the work. It copies the info I need to Memo. Saves the file and then runs a file in the Application manager.

The icon looks like this.

That is it. The phone beeps that it has received the Vcard and I can add it to my 7110´s phonebook. 7110 supports several numbers per name. When I get an entry transferred it shows the work/jobb numbers with a little factory beside it in the display on the 7110. Also Home/hjem cellphone/mob is showed with its own icon. Very nice.

I have now sold the Nokia 7110 to my father. I bought a Nokia 6210 and all the above worked without any changes to the setup. I now use an Ericsson T39m cellphone. It does not have the memory to hold the notefield so that could be removed from the Vcard. But it does support the rest."

For sending a vcard from the phone to the palmtop, the steps are pretty identical:
Send a vcard from your phone, receive it with ir.exe oget vcard.vcf, and then import the vcf file into the palmtop´ phone book. This last step has not been done yet by anyone, so I cannot provide a solution here. But please feel free to develop a solution and email it to me! :-)

The calendar / appointments / vcal

There is not yet any easy way to exchange whole appointment books between a phone and the palmtop.

But it should be possible to send single appointments as a vcal OBEX object to the phone, similar to the way described above for the vcard.
If anyone really has a need for that, please develop a way and email it to me. I will gladly add it to this page.

Collection of related software:

Internet software for the palmtop with links to the makers´ home pages:

WWW/LX version 3 is an internet software package for the palmtop by D&A Software. Provides all you need for internet on the palmtop. The only software which is IrDA compatible!

IR.EXE by D&A Software is free software which can be used for various IrDA applications (vcard, vcal exchange, IrDA printer emulation...)

LXTCP is a free software that provides an IP stack and several client programs to the palmtop. About the same functionality as WWW/LX, except that it doesn´t have IrDA capabilities and there´s no web browser for it. But there´s an (also free) addition called ´cc:lxpop´ that lets you use the built-in cc:Mail program for email. LXTCP is made by Rod Whitby, cc:lxpop is made by Brian McIlvaine.

NetTamer: A shareware product that integrates an IP stack, a web browser, an email client and some more features. Also no IrDA!

Goin´ Postal: A very nice software package for email made by Steven Lawson. Includes a dialer and an email client.

SSHDOS, which is a DOS SSH client, usable with dosppp for example, see next item.

dosppp, which is a PPP packet driver for DOS, providing a TCP/IP stack to clients like sshdos, for example.

PDU and PostPDU: Send SMSs written on the palmtop with your mobile phone. Made by Stefan Peichl and Tony Hutchins

Quickstar Fax (qfax), a HP palmtop fax program. See section "How to send faxes" for usage!

www.hp200lx.net, category "Communication" of the SUPER data base for every other piece of communications software you are looking for!

New technologies:

Bluetooth

With time there come new technologies which enable mobile, i.e. wireless communications. A very interesting technology is Bluetooth, which is a standard to connect several computer peripherials wirelessly to each other. Mobile phones equipped with Bluetooth are just put on the market, first models are available from Nokia.
So it would be great if we could let data cables at home, don´t worry about electromagnetic interference in the IR receiver electronics and just establish a Bluetooth radio connection from the palmtop on the table to the mobile phone in the pocket to let the latter establish an Internet connection through the GSM or GPRS network to the ISP. Wouldn´t that be great?

Well, theoretically it is possible: There are already RS232-Bluetooth dongles which you can plug into any serial RS232 port. For the operating system of the computer this connection looks just as a serial cable connection. Unfortunately these dongles aren´t available yet. And the first ones which will be available end of 2001 made by Brainboxes will require an external power supply. So you had to carry around the dongle, an HP to DB9 adaptor, a null modem adaptor, an external power supply and your bluetooth phone. Not really convenient, IMO. ;-)
Leaving away the bunch of adaptors would not be difficult - just open the dongle and attach a self-made HP plug to it. But I don´t know if the external power supply could be replaced by a direct wiring to the 200LX´s main batteries for example. We will have to wait until the first ones become available to test this.
There are lots of Bluetooth PCMCIA cards available. But probably no one of these work in the Palmtop, because you need special drivers for them. Windows drivers, of course. The only chance would be if someone ported a driver from Windows to DOS. In addition these cards may draw too much power from the PCMCIA port. I don´t know about the power requirements of Bluetooth cards, but if they exceed the 150mA limit of the Palmtop´s PCMCIA slot, they are totally useless.

HSCSD

: (some companies market this service as HSCD or HSMD)

HSCSD (High Speed Circuit Switched Data) can easily be used if you already own a mobile phone which works together with the palmtop and is HSCSD-capable. HSCSD simply opens more than one GSM channel by using more timeslots and thus offers n times the capacity of one GSM channel (n is the number of used channels, up to 4 channels can be used, so a bit rate of max 14.400bps *4 = 57.600bps can be used).
Ask your mobile phone network provider if you can use HSCSD and make sure your phone supports it. You probably have to use a special INIT string to enable HSCSD. Look at the section AT-commands of this document in order to find out about the commands needed for special founctions of your phone.

Martin Bergvill provided following HSCSD INIT strings for the Nokia 6210 (the "analog" strings establish a conventional HSCSD connection, the V.110 (=ISDN) strings use the ISDN protocol to establish a link and thus you will get the "CONNECT" 15-20 seconds earlier. There is no difference in connection speed, and not all network providers and telephones can use V.110, but if they can, it saves you time (15-20 seconds once per connection) and money):

9.6 KBit/s analog: +CBST=0,0,1;+CHSN=1,0,0,0
9.6 KBit/s V110: +CBST=71,0,1;+CHSN=1,0,0,0
14.4 KBit/s analog: +CBST=0,0,1;+CHSN=2,0,0,0
14.4 KBit/s V110: +CBST=81,0,1;+CHSN=2,0,0,0
19.2 KBit/s analog: +CBST=0,0,1;+CHSN=3,0,0,0
19.2 KBit/s V110: +CBST=81,0,1;+CHSN=3,0,0,0
28.8 KBit/s analog: +CBST=0,0,1;+CHSN=4,0,0,0
28.8 KBit/s V110: +CBST=81,0,1;+CHSN=4,0,0,0
43.2 KBit/s analog: +CBST=0,0,1;+CHSN=6,0,0,0
43.2 KBit/s V110: +CBST=81,0,1;+CHSN=6,0,0,0

For the Ericsson T39m, he has found that the init string ATZ+cbst=0,0,1;+chsn=4,2,0,12 works.

For lists of AT commands (also especially for HSCSD) for the various phones please have a look into the section AT commands below!

Be aware that your network provider will charge extra fees for a HSCSD connection, usually n times the price as for a simple GSM data connection (n is the number of channels you use, s.a.)

GPRS

General Packet Radio Service is a new standard in mobile telecommunications. It is a packet-based radio service which is optimized to transmit data and speech as data packets (just as the Internet), currently with a throughput of about 25 - 50 kbps. So you don´t establish a real link, but you can send or receive data packets whenever you want to. You are not charged by time anymore but by amount of data / speech transmitted over the network. This is of course ideal for sending an email on the road with the palmtop. :-) You don´t have to establish an expensive link just to send a 2kB-email. Imagine: If I want to send an email from my palmtop witht the mobile phone, I have to dial into my network provider, send the email with Post/LX and then disconnect. This all takes about 2 minutes. For 2 online minutes I currently have to pay about 0.15 US$. The GPRS prices are currently at a level of about 0.025US$ per 1kB (Mar 2002, Germany), i.e. if you send a 2kB email, with all overhead for SMTP protocol etc. maybe 3kB, you only pay 0.075 US$ for sending your email. See the advantage? ;-) On the other hd, for larger data amounts, GPRS is still much, much more expensive than a GSM connection. Ask your GSM / GPRS service provider for the current rates.
GPRS has become available and mobile phones which support GPRS are also availble (Siemens S45, Nokia 6310, Ericsson T39m, T68...).
If you intend to use the Ericsson phones with GPRS, you have to use a modified version of WWW/LX v3 for that due to a bug in the Ericsson firmware. Andreas Garzotto was so kind to develop a work-around for this bug. Please contact the people at D&A Software and ask for this modified version, if you need it.

UMTS

Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (also known as the 3rd generation mobile network or simply "3G") is not yet available. It will also be packet-based, as GPRS, but it will offer much higher bandwidth (up to 2 MB/s in the first stage). If someone besides me will still own a 200LX when UMTS becomes available, please report if you got any UMTS device working in conjunction with the 200LX!

AT commands:

Here you will find data sheets provided by the phone manufactureres and other collections of AT commands:

HSCSD and GPRS AT commands for Siemens, Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung and Motorola phones: HTML version and XLS version
AT commands for Nokia phones (Windows HLP (help) file, 380 kB)
AT commands for Siemens phones:
- Modem commands (35 kB PDF file)
- GSM AT command set (GSM 07.07, GSM 07,05, Siemens specific commands) (180 kB PDF file)
AT commands for Ericsson phones: In general go to http://www.ericsson.com/mobilityworld/sub/open/index.html, click on the device you want to have an AT command overview for (under "Mobile Devices"), click on "Documentation" on the left, then search for a link "Developer´s guidelines AT commands online reference" or similar to download the PDF document.
From my site you can directly download the AT command reference for the R520 and the T39m. Both are zipped PDF files, about 1 MB in size.

My Palmtop C: Drive Backup Strategies

2009-10-14T13:32:03+00:00

Archived 2013-12-08
This page has been archived and some links may not work correctly anymore. No updates of this page will be done anymore.

Contents of this page:

Introduction:

I have been asked in several personal emails to explain my backup mechanism in detail. I´ll do it here now:

In general, my setup does the following every night:
Checks if everything is ready to make a backup:

checks the data bases on C:\_dat\*.?db (appointment book, phone book, notes)
checks the main battery voltage

If everything is okay, it makes a backup of drive C:\, creates a zip file in A:\BACKUP_C which contains the whole C: drive.
The backup is discarded if the target disk is full during the process.

Notifies me using an entry in the appointment book every morning if the backup succeeded or not, and if not, why not. It can be unsuccessful due to one of the following reasons:

insufficient battery power
insufficient disk space on the A: drive
a currupt database (appointments, contacts, notes)

I do a rotational backup with 2 backups existing at one time, every second day every backup is overwritten by its new version. I call these backups "a.zip" and "b.zip". So, if no error occurs, I should have two backups everytime. One which is not older than 24h and one which is not older than 48h.

The mechanism can easily be extended to make more than two rotational backups. If you have plenty of room on A: for several backups, I recommend to make more backups.

In addition I strongly recommend to backup the A: drive (probably a flash or compact flash card) to another target, such as a desktop computer, and burn it on CD-RW from time to time.

In order to make this backup procedure work reliably, I recommend that you take care to save all your work every evening, and it is good to close system manager applications (MEMO, notes, phone book, appointment book etc). A system macro will do that automatically for you if you don´t do it, but you could have forgot to save something important, and this could cause problems.

Setup:

Now in detail:

Needed programs:

pkzip
voltchck (checks battery voltage, by J. Korthof)
dbcheck (checks data bases, by Curtis Cameron)
and, if you like to see the daily greeting of the appointment book, you need greet.zip by Andreas Garzotto

All these utilities should be installed somewhere your path variable points to.

1. Create the file backup.bat somewhere where it can be found by the "path". It is assumed that you want to backup the whole C: to A:\BACKUP_C\
See my backup.bat below. If source and/or target differ, modify all relevant path information in the backup.bat and in the system macro F9 described below.
And create the directory a:\backup_c on your flash card.

2. Create two system macros (and save them! Otherwise you will lose them if you lose all you other data and have to restore the backup ;-)). I call these macros F10 and F9 (as they are called on my palmtop). You may call them whatever you like.

F10: Closes all system manager applications and goes back to the System Manager Topcard (and makes sure a MEMO document is saved if MEMO asks if it should save)
{Filer}{Filer}{More}{Menu}{Enter}l{Enter}{More}{Menu}{Enter}l
On my German palmtop, the macro is
{Datei-Manager}{Datei-Manager}{Mehr}{Menü}{Enter}a{Enter}J{Mehr}{Menü}{Enter}a
F9: Manages the notification: Opens MEMO, loads a:\backup_c\report.txt (adjust path if necessary!), marks the reporting line (shift-cursor-down), copies to clipboard, exits MEMO, launches appointment book, makes sure the appointments window is open (F9), jumps to today (F5, F4), creates a new appointment (F2), pastes the clipboard as title, sets the start to 8am (adjust if you prefer another time), sets the stop time to 8.01am (adjust...), disables notification (take care you enter the space after the two tabs!), 5*tab to the weekly and monthly view and disable both (spaces!), save with F10 and exit appointment book:
{Memo}{F9}a:\backup_c\report.txt{Enter}{Shift+Down}{Copy} {Menu}q{Appt}{F9}{F5}{F4}{F2}{Paste}{Tab}8{Tab}8.01 {Tab}{Tab} {Tab}{Tab}{Tab}{Tab}{Tab} {Tab} {F10}{Menu}q
The German version is:
{Memo}{F9}a:\backup_c\report.txt{Enter}{Ums+Ab}{Kopie} {Menü}e{KAL}{F9}{F5}{F4}{F2}{Einfg}{Tab}8{Tab}8.01 {Tab}{Tab} {Tab}{Tab}{Tab}{Tab}{Tab} {Tab} {F10}{Menü}e

3. Create 3 appointments in the appointment book early in the morning when you don't expect to use your palmtop, for example at around 2am. Preserve the time differences I used. Increase the time difference between the second and the third appointment, if your backup takes longer than about 10 minutes for a backup (e.g. if you have a huge C: drive to back up or a single speed palmtop. Maybe consider increasing the battery voltage limit in backup.bat!).

2:00am:||10
(calls system macro 10)
2:01am: |c:\batch\backup.bat a |
(calls backup.bat with parameter a (so it creates a.zip) (replace path by your custom path) and reserves all available memory for that backup.bat)
2:15am: ||9
(calls system macro 9)

Set for all these appointments:
Stop time: 1 minute after start time,
Location: Q
Notification: activated, 0 minutes,
no weekly and monthly view.

Set for the 1st and 3rd one: Repetition: daily until 1.1.2020
Set for the second: Repetition: every second day (daily, cycle=2 days) until 1.1.2020

Here you can see how it looks in my appointment book. You can even see a notification that the backup was successful at 8am.

4. Copy the second appointment (2:01) and paste it into the day after the one you created the other appointments in, and change its title to |c:\batch\backup.bat b | (apply the change to all occurrencies of this appointment, when you are asked).
Take care all other settings match the settings of the original appointment. Go a few days ahead and see if the repititions are set correctly. You should now have three appointments every day, and the one which calls backup.bat should have a and b as parameters, alternating.

Here you can change the behaviour of the rotational backup. You can create as much different "backup.bat" calling appointments as you like, giving parameters with different names. So you can set 5 different appointments with "backup.bat a", "backup.bat b", "backup.bat c" and so on. Or 10 or 20. Just be sure you have one of them each day and you have enough disk space available on the target drive.
Of course you can also create the appointments weekly instead of daily, this may be better if you don´t use your palmtop very often.

BTW: You can also call backup.bat from the command line, if you want to make a manual backup e.g. when you plan to take apart the palmtop or install some new dangerous software ;-). Just call "backup m" and you will do a manual backup, called m.zip. You will see the report, which you usually see in the appointment book at 8am, at the end of the manual backup.

5. Either disable the daily greeting of the appointment book (menu "options") or modify the time it is shown each day with Andreas Garzotto's greetime.com from the greet.zip package mentioned above. The greeting has to be shown AFTER the notify macro is executed, e.g. I could call greetime 0500 in order to let appointment book show my daily greeting not before 5am, so it doesn´t interfere with the backup routine and even shows its report when popping up.

Have fun and take care of your data!

@echo off
REM backup.bat by Daniel Hertrich
REM http://www.hermocom.com/knowledgebase/hplx/backuplx

echo ERROR CREATING REPORT.TXT > a:\backup_c\report.txt
a:
REM Change 2.40 to 2.30 if you use Alkalines. 2.40 is good for
REM Rechargeable batteries
a:\bin\voltchck.exe 2.40
if errorlevel 1 goto power

REM =============================================
REM You can put other nightly jobs in here, too!
REM =============================================

dbcheck c:\_dat\*.?db > a:\dbcheck.log
if errorlevel 2 goto dberror

REM now create today's backup, first with a temporary name
a:\bin\pkzip -rp -es -whs -Jhrs a:\backup_c\%1_temp.zip c:\*.*
if errorlevel 14 goto space

REM delete old version of backup
del a:\backup_c\%1.zip > nul

a:
cd \backup_c

REM rename today's backup to %1.zip
ren %1_temp.zip %1.zip
echo Backup %1 was successful > a:\backup_c\report.txt
goto end

:dberror
echo Backup %1 FAILED (see a:\dbcheck.log) > a:\backup_c\report.txt
goto end

:power
echo Backup %1 FAILED (battery) > a:\backup_c\report.txt
goto end

:space
echo Backup %1 FAILED (disk space) > a:\backup_c\report.txt
goto end

:end
REM print report to screen
type a:\backup_c\report.txt

And here you can see the contents of my C: drive (about 4MB currently) on the left side zipped to the a.zip and b.zip in a:\backup_c on the right side, the file report.txt is also shown

Restoring a backup:

If you ever get in trouble with your C: drive you now have a fairly up-to-date backup on your flash card. But what to do to get it back onto C:?

Here is a suggestion how to handle fast data recovery:

Everytime I boot my palmtop with the flash card inserted (and that is usually the case) it looks on the flash card for a config.sys and if it exists, it takes this one instead of the d:\config.sys or the c:\config.sys. And if it takes a:\config.sys, it also takes a:\autoexec.bat if it exists.

Now I have a line in my a:\autoexec.bat which verifies if the C: drive is intact by looking for a specific file which is always there if the drive is intact:

if not exist c:\bin\spd31.exe goto c_deleted

label c_deleted leads to my "catastrophe handling routine", which is very simple:

:c_deleted
echo c:\bin\spd31.exe is missing. The RAM drive seems to be deleted.
echo In order to restore the latest backup, please enter on C:\>
echo unzip -d -o a:\backup\[lastbackup].zip
path a:\bin
c:
cd\
dir a:\backup_c
goto end

So this simply tells me what to do in such a case and sets the path to a:\bin, where unzip.exe is located and it shows the contents of a:\backup_c, so I can see what the name of the latest backup is. For example, if the following is shown:

 Volume in drive A is 96M-CARD
 Directory of A:\BACKUP_C

.            (DIR)     07-19-01  10:13a
..           (DIR)     07-19-01  10:13a
A        ZIP   2035650 09-03-01   2:06a
B        ZIP   2051668 09-04-01   2:06a
REPORT   TXT        26 09-04-01   2:06a
        5 file(s)    4087344 bytes
                     7411712 bytes free

I know that b.zip is the latest backup, so I have to use

C:\> unzip -d -o a:\backup_c\b.zip

to restore my C: drive.

Please make sure unzip.exe (or pkunzip.exe) is available on your flash card, otherwise you would have a big problem. pkunzip uses the same switches as unzip, so the command line would be

C:\> pkunzip -d -o a:\backup_c\[lastbackup].zip

The switch "-d" creates all needed directories, "-o" overwrites without prompting. Sometimes I have to set the settings in the config utility of system manager anew after a backup restore (time, date, owner, time / date format...). And appointment book (and alarm clock, if you have and use it) has to be started once in order to make the next alarms work.

Use manual backup to clone a RAM drive:

By the way: This technique is ideal for cloning RAM drives of palmtops:

If you wish to copy a RAM drive 1:1 from one palmtop to another, simply put the flash card into the original one, type

C:\> backup z

Put the flash card into the one which shall get the RAM drive contents of the first palmtop, initialize its RAM drive if necessary, reboot the palmtop with this flash card and type

C:\> unzip -d -o a:\backup_c\z.zip

This works of course only if the second palmtop has enough space available on its RAM drive.

A much more improved technique using PIM/PE for logging and reporting and optimized for large (upgraded) RAM drives:

I have recently upgraded my internal RAM drive to 32 MB and I switched entirely from the built-in appointment book to PIM/PE (by Andreas Garzotto). Hence my need to modify and improve the nightly backup technique.

See below my new "nightly.bat" which is still invoked by the built-in appointment book, but now without any parameter, everything regarding rotational backup is done entirely from within the batch file ("if exist ....zip move ....zip ....zip").

Download links to all needed utilities are directly in the batch file below.

@echo off
REM %1: nobackup OR onlybackup OR everything
REM nobackup: Only runs "other nightly jobs"
REM onlybackup: overrides "other nightly jobs"
REM everything: executes "other nightly jobs" AND backups.

REM %2: all (only if %1 given!) - overrides AC and battery voltage
REM detections and backups everything, regardless of the voltage.

REM Needs:
REM setit, echot, timestmp, voltchck, pkzip, dbcheck

if not "%1" == "everything" goto normal
if not "%2" == "all" goto normal

setit lf
echo ATTENTION: Light Sleep Mode deactivated during nightly runs!

:normal

set f=n
if not "%f%"=="n" goto NOENV

timestmp  >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
echot "Starting nightly.bat" >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim

if "%1"=="nobackup" goto OTHER

if "%2"=="all" goto pow1ok

voltchck 4.00
if errorlevel 1 goto noAC

:pow1ok

if "%1"=="onlybackup" goto NOOTHER

echot "AC connected. Doing everything." >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim

:OTHER

REM ============= OTHER NIGHTLY JOBS: ==============

echot "Start pdb2x.bat"  >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
call c:\batch\pdb2x.bat nightly
REM (called with %1 = nightly, so pdb2x knows that it has been invoked automatically!)
echot "Done  pdb2x.bat"  >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim

echot "Start find -r"  >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
find -r
echot "Done  find -r"  >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim

REM =========== END OTHER NIGHTLY JOBS =============

if "%1"=="nobackup" goto nobackup

:NOOTHER

REM FROM HERE EVERYTHING IS BACKUP-RELATED!

:BACK1

:zip1
echot "Zipping C:\\PROGRAMS" >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
if exist a:\backup_c\c_progr.zip del a:\backup_c\c_progr.zip
pkzip -rp -ex -whs -Jhrs a:\backup_c\c_progr.zip c:\programs\*.*
if errorlevel 14 goto NOSPC1

REM SHIFTING!!
if exist a:\backup_c\2_c_pr.zip del a:\backup_c\2_c_pr.zip
if exist a:\backup_c\1_c_pr.zip move a:\backup_c\1_c_pr.zip a:\backup_c\2_c_pr.zip
if exist a:\backup_c\0_c_pr.zip move a:\backup_c\0_c_pr.zip a:\backup_c\1_c_pr.zip
move a:\backup_c\c_progr.zip a:\backup_c\0_c_pr.zip
goto BACK2

:NOSPC1
echot "NO SPACE (1) on A for c:\\programs backup!" >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
set f=y

:noAC

:BACK2

if "%2"=="all" goto pow2ok

voltchck 2.40
if errorlevel 1 goto nopow2
goto pow2ok

:nopow2
echot "POWER TEST (2) UNSUCCESSFUL. No Backup of c:\\*.* and f:\\*.*." >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
set f=y
goto FINISH

:pow2ok
echot "Batteries sufficient for C: backup w/o programs." >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
echot "Checking DBs in C:\\_dat\\*.?db" >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim

dbcheck c:\_dat\*.?db > a:\backup_c\dbcheck.log
echot "Done. Result See a:\\backup_c\\dbcheck.log"  >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
if errorlevel 2 goto dberr2
echot "Databases okay." >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
goto zip2

:dberr2
echot "DB(s) (2) FAULTY. See A:\\dbcheck.LOG ! No backup of C:\\*.* this time!" >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
set f=y
goto BACK3

:zip2
echot "Zipping C:\\*.*" >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
if exist a:\backup_c\c.zip del a:\backup_c\c.zip
pkzip -rp -ex -whs -Jhrs -x@a:\backup_c\omit2.pkz a:\backup_c\c.zip c:\*.*
if errorlevel 14 goto nospc2

REM SHIFTING!
if exist a:\backup_c\2_c.zip del a:\backup_c\2_c.zip
if exist a:\backup_c\1_c.zip move a:\backup_c\1_c.zip a:\backup_c\2_c.zip
if exist a:\backup_c\0_c.zip move a:\backup_c\0_c.zip a:\backup_c\1_c.zip
move a:\backup_c\c.zip a:\backup_c\0_c.zip

goto BACK3

:nospc2
echot "NO SPACE (2) on A for c:\\*.* backup!" >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
set f=y



:BACK3

if "%2"=="all" goto pow3ok

voltchck 2.40
if errorlevel 1 goto nopow3

:pow3ok
echot "Batteries still good. Doing F:\\*.* Backup." >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim

:zip3
echot "Zipping F:\\*.*" >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
if exist a:\backup_c\f.zip del a:\backup_c\f.zip
pkzip -rp -ex -whs -Jhrs a:\backup_c\f.zip f:\*.*
if errorlevel 14 goto nospc3

REM SHIFTING!!
if exist a:\backup_c\2_f.zip del a:\backup_c\2_f.zip
if exist a:\backup_c\1_f.zip move a:\backup_c\1_f.zip a:\backup_c\2_f.zip
if exist a:\backup_c\0_f.zip move a:\backup_c\0_f.zip a:\backup_c\1_f.zip
move a:\backup_c\f.zip a:\backup_c\0_f.zip

goto FINISH


:nospc3
echot "NO SPACE (3) on A for f:\\*.* backup! >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
set f=y
goto FINISH

:nopow3
echot "POWER TEST (3) unsuccessful. No F:\\*.* backup." >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
set f=y
goto FINISH

:nobackup
echo Nobackup. No backup created (noly manually), END.
goto FINISH

:FINISH
timestmp >> c:\_dat\pim\data\cur.pim
if "%f%"=="n" echot "Backup successful!" >> c:\_dat\pim\data\cur.pim
if "%f%"=="y" echot "BACKUP FAILURE! See backup.pim" >> c:\_dat\pim\data\cur.pim
echo. >> c:\_dat\pim\data\cur.pim
goto end

:NOENV
echo NO ENVIRONMENT SPACE AVAILABLE!
echot "NO ENVIRONMENT SPACE AVAILABLE!" >> c:\_dat\pim\data\backup.pim
echot "BACKUP FAILED! NO ENVIRONMENT SPACE AVAILABLE!" >> c:\_dat\pim\data\cur.pim

:end
setit lo

How it works (in words):

Usually I plug in the AC adapter before I go to sleep. Sometimes not.
I want to let nightly.bat do all its jobs if AC is plugged in (they take about half an hour), if AC is not plugged in, I want nightly.bat to leave alone backing up c:\programs entirely (since there are programs only, which don´t change too often anyway.
And if AC is not plugged in, I want nightly.bat to do the most important thing first, then all the others, and before every new action it checks the battery voltage. If the battery voltage has droppen below 2.40 volts, I want nightly.bat to finish its job instantly.

Also I want to be able to give parameters to nightly.bat in case I call it manually to control its behaviour (bypass voltage checks for example).
And the report is now created very detailled with time stamps (using my self-made utility "echot") and written into "backup.pim" for PIM/PE instead of a single line written into the appointment book.

Here is the "English translation" of nightly.bat:

IF %1 is not "everything" goto "NORMAL"
IF %2 is not "all"        goto "NORMAL"

Deactivate light sleep mode (using setit)

:NORMAL

set environment variable "f" to "n" (is later used to indicate bakup failures)
check if "f" is really "n", otherwise goto NOENV

Create a time stamp in backup.pim
and write "starting nightly.bat" to backup.pim

IF %1 is "nobackup" goto OTHER (no backup, only "other nightly jobs")
IF %2 is "all" goto POW1OK (bypass first power check)

Volt check for 4.00 volts (only "true" if AC is plugged in, see voltchck documentation)
If not true goto NOAC (no adapter plugged in)

:POW1OK
IF %1 is "onlybackup" goto NOOTHER (i.e. override "other nightly jobs")
write "AC connected. Doing everything" to backup.pim

:OTHER
...
here are all the other things which I want to be done nightly,
i.e. pdb2x, reindexing FIND/LX etc.

IF %1 is "nobackup" goto NOBACKUP

:NOOTHER
(from here everything is backup-related)

REM ================= Backup 1 ====================
:BACK1  (backup no 1)
:ZIP1
PKZIP C:\PROGRAMS
if PKZIP ends with errorlevel 14 (not enough space) goto SPC1

For rotational backup: Delete last one in the queue,
shift existing ones one place forward
and put new ZIP file at the end.
goto BACK2


:SPC1
set variable "f" to "y" (to indicate a failure)
and write failure to backup.pim

REM ================= Backup 2 ====================
:NOAC
:BACK2  (backup no 2)
IF %2 is "all" goto POW2OK (bypass 2nd power check)
Volt check for 2.40 volts
IF power OK goto POW2OK,
ELSE goto NOPOW2

:NOPOW2
write failure to backup.pim
set environment variale "f" to "y" to indicate failure
goto FINISH

:POW2OK
write to backup.pim that power is OK in 2nd test
checking data bases (using dbcheck)
IF a data base is not OK, goto DBERR2
ELSE write "databases Okay" to backup.pim
goto ZIP2

:DBERR2
write "database faulty" to backup.pim
set "f" to "n" to indicate failure
goto BACK3

:ZIP2
Doing 2nd backup:
PKZIP C:\*.* (without C:\PROGRAMS)
if PKZIP ends with errorlevel 14 (not enough space) goto NOSPC2

For rotational backup: Delete last one in the queue,
shift existing ones one place forward
and put new ZIP file at the end.
goto BACK3

:NOSPC2
write "no space" to backup.pim
set "f" to "y" to indicate failure

REM ================= Backup 3 ====================
:BACK3
IF %1 is "all" goto POW3OK (bypass 3rd power check)

Volt check for 2.4 volts
IF power OK goto POW3OK,
ELSE goto NOPOW3

:POW3OK
write to backup.pim that power is OK in 3rd test

:ZIP3
PKZIP F:\*.* (the small RAM drive, which contains drivers, but doesn´t change often)
if PKZIP ends with errorlevel 14 (not enough space) goto NOSPC3

For rotational backup: Delete last one in the queue,
shift existing ones one place forward
and put new ZIP file at the end.
goto FINISH

:NOSPC3
write "no space" to backup.pim
set "f" to "y" to indicate failure
goto FINISH

:NOPOW3
write "no power" to backup.pim
set "f" to "y" to indicate failure
goto FINISH

:NOBACKUP
ECHO "doing no backup (only manually). END!
goto FINISH

write timestamp to cur.pim
if "f" is "n" write "backup successful" to cur.pim
if "f" is "y" write "backup FAIULURE, see backup.pim" to cur.pim
goto END

:NOENV
ECHO "NO ENVIRONMENT SPACE AVAILABLE"
write "backup failed, no environment space available" to backup.pim and cur.pim

:END
enable lightsleep mode (with setit)

Special thanks to Konstantin v. Witzleben for testing the whole setup, Tony Hutchins for translating the Macros from German to English and Avi Meshar for the basic idea for the way of creating the notification in the appointment book!

PalmtopCircuit

2009-10-22T07:43:24+00:00

Archived 2013-12-08
This page has been archived and some links may not work correctly anymore. No updates of this page will be done anymore.

Palmtop Circuit

Contents of this page

Introduction

Palmtop Circuit is a wonderful piece of software, made by the Hungarian company Design Soft, which allows a DOS PC user to draw and analyze electronic circuits. It also runs fine on the HPLX DOS palmtops, and it is even developed especially for these nice machines. Hence the name "Palmtop Circuit".

The following is an article I wrote about Palmtop Circuit (PaCi) to the HPLX mailing list in 1999:

As some of you know, I bought Palmtop Circuit from Design Soft a few months ago. Maybe you remember the problems Tamas Feher had with Design Soft when he tried to convince them to sell PaCi to us. But he did it - and I'm very thankful for that.
Design Soft sold it only because of a promise that they got abt. 10 orders (I didn't remember the exact number). I don't know if they got all these orders, but I doubt it, because noone is reporting or asking about it on this list.

So I now want to let you know my experiences with Palmtop Circuit. Maybe this helps some of you to decide if you want to buy it or not.

First of all let me say, i never used PSpice or another circuit analysis program, so I'm not able to compare PaCi with one of these products.

And: I have no relation to Design Soft, so I have no interest in advertising PaCi. The reason for that I'm writing this report is, that I remember the long discussions with Tamas Feher who contacted Design Soft to convince them to sell PaCi to us.

I want to thank Tamas for his efforts, because I now find that PaCi is a really great piece of software!

About PaCi:

PaCi is a software package (installed size about 800k-1M, depending on installation of sample files etc., cost 80 US$, if I remeber correctly, but for exact price please ask Tamas Feher, he is also a list member) that lets you design AND analyze electronic circuits with a high complexity. The manual says 'more than 100 nodes, depending on amount of RAM' - I didn't reach the limit by now... ;-).

It's able to do DC, AC and transient analysis of linear and non-linear electronic networks. The look of the drawn circuits is not as good as probably of the newer PSpice products, but it does its job very well.

The manual of PaCi is _extremly_ good - a short introduction, then follows an exercise by means of an example RLC-circuit, and after that, all the menu items (there are much!) are described. What's also worth to be mentioned is that the principles of the program are also described in the manual. You can read there about Laplace transformation, Fourier transformation, Fibonacci' search method, Gaussian elimination method for solving equation systems and much more.

Now I'll tell a little bit about the work with PaCi:

After you started PaCi, you see a screen that is similar to a drawing software. A grid, a menu and a status line. If you press '=', a list appears, where you can choose a component. Now you can move down with arrow keys or you can press the shortcut 'CA' to jump to the capacitor. Press enter, and the capacitor is shown on your work sheet. Now you can move, rotate and mirror it until you have it in the right position. Press enter. It is now fixed in its position and a window appears where you can set all parameters of the capacitor, including a label. Now you can press '=' again and insert the next component of your circuit and so on. If this is finished, you can connect all components with wires by pressing the space key.

Now you can analyse the circuit. For example you can let PaCi draw the Bode diagram. You press Menu,A,A for menu/analysis/AC analysis and then move the cursor to 'Bode diagram'. After pressing enter, you have to enter a few parameters for the diagram: frequency range, number of points to be calculated. If you now click on 'Calculate', the diagram will be calculated (that takes about 5-30 secs, depending on how much has to be calculated) and displayed. You can print the diagram or export as HPGL file (this can also be done with the circuit itself, of course!).

You can let show the Bode diagram for both amplitude and phase characteristics of the circuit.

Of course, it's also possible to calculate the transfer function or time function of a circuit.

It's also possible to watch the transient behaviour of a circuit: For example, if you create an RLC-circuit

----[R]----[L]------
                |
                -
                C
                -
                |
--------------------

and you want to know the output voltage if you switch the inoput voltage from 0 to 1, you can do this by pressing menu/analysis/transient analysis and set a few parameters. If you then press 'calculate', PaCi will show you a nice diagram looking like this:

                    .
                   ..
                  ..
                 ..
                ..
             ...
        .....
.......

where the x-axis shows the time and the y-axis shows the output voltage. (the diagrams PaCi draws are much prettier than my ASCII-drawings!)

PaCi also has a built-in text editor which you can use to place text (own descriptions or functions created by PaCi) into the current graphic (circuit or diagram).

Further features I didn't use by now:

- Optimization of parameters of a circuit: You can give special parameters the circuit has to have and PaCi can calculate the best values for components.

- poles and zeros diagram for circuits

- built-in interpreter: it allows to define arbitrary formulas and then draw them on the screen. In additin to the standard mathematical functions several auxiliary functions and access to the component parameters of the actual circuit are provided.

I think I now have covered the most important features of PaCi.

If you have further questions about PaCi, please contact Tamas Feher at etomcat@2fkft.com.

If you would like to purchase PaCi, please contact Petra Dudas at petra@designsoftware.com.
(these email addresses may be obwolete by now, since this article is now over 10 years old!)

Please note that I am just a satisfied customer of DesignSoft, I am not involved into DesignSoft in any way.

Screen shots

Here you can see a few screen shots of Palmtop Circuit:

A common RLC-circuit:

The Bode diagram of the RLC circuit:

The phase characteristics of the RLC-circuit

the transient analysis of the RLC-circuit:

PaCi calculated the transfer function of the RLC-circuit and showed it in the text editor. I wrote a few words above the function. Sorry - must be ´calculated´ not ´capculated´! ;-)

I put the contents of the text editor onto the work sheet under the circuit. Now I could print the whole sheet.

Another circuit designed with PaCi: A Colpitts oscillator:

PDB2X - Sync your HP phonebook data to various targets

2009-10-22T08:53:33+00:00

Archived 2013-12-08
This page has been archived and some links may not work correctly anymore. No updates of this page will be done anymore.

Contents of this page:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PDB2X

Introduction:

Do you use the email software Post/LX by D&A Software?
Do you also keep two email address books on your Plamtop? One as the built-in phone book and another in Post/LX as "post.adr"?

If yes, PDB2ADR may be interesting for you.

There are two ways to automatically create a post.adr from your built-in phone book. One way is to use a smart clip inside the phone book. This method is described behind this link.

Another more comfortable way is to use the program pdb2adr, which is described and available here. With PDB2ADR you can even export mobile phone numbers from the built-in phone book to post.adr for use to send SMS messages with your mobile phone out of Post/LX in conjuction with Stefan Peichl´s PDU (read my mobile Internet page to learn more about this).

In addition, PDB2ADR lets you create your Post/LX distribution list files (*.adr) automatically.

PDB2PHN, which is also included in the PDB2X package, lets you transfer your whole HPLX phone book (only names with one phone number for each name) to your cellular phone. You need Robot/LX and a registered version of WWW/LX for that.

Last but not least, PDB2PIM converts the HPLX phone book to a PIM/PE compatible database format. This is useful if you either want to migrate the built-in phone book entirely to PIM/PE, or if you still use the built-in one as your standard (as I do) and use PIM/PE additionally, so PDB2PIM lets you synchronize both with one batch file call.

I have a batch file called pdb2x.bat which uses all three programs to synchronize my HPLX phone book every night (the batch is called by the appointment book) to PIM, cellphone and Post/LX.

Requirements and Download:

In order to use the programs from the PDB2X package, you need of course a phone book file on your palmtop (usually c:\_dat\phone.pdb). PDB2ADR is needed if you want to synchronize your PDB data with the Post/LX address book. And for PDB2PHN (PDB data synchronisation to the mobile phone's address book) you need WWW/LX in order to establish a connection to your mobile phone.

Other requirements:

GDBIO which dumps your phone.pdb into a comma seperated value file and thus prepares your phone boook for use with PDB2X
The PDB2X package (download see below) which extracts the relevant data and puts them to stdout (redirect it into the output file!)
BIGSORT v2.2 by Turgut Kalfaoglu, if you prefer sorted output
SED, the strem editor, for MS-DOS is also needed to sort the full phone book with notes in CDF format. You don´t need it if you don´t want sorted output.

The PDB2xxx.EXE binaries, SED and BIGSORT are considered to be installed somewhere in your PATH in the following description. If they are in a directory not accessable through your PATH, please give explicit paths in the batch file(s).

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PDB2X

PDB2ADR: Standard setup:

Go to DOS on your LX, create a directory c:\_tmp\ (md c:\_tmp) and do a

gdbio c:\_dat\phone.pdb > c:\_tmp\phone.cdf.

This creates a first comma seperated value file from your phone book which you need to figure out the correct parameters for PDB2ADR.
Open the phone.cdf file in your favorite text editor (preferrably without line wrapping) and search for an entry that has an email address and, if you want to export them too, a mobile phone number.
Such an entry should look like (for example)

"Hertrich, Daniel","","private","","+491231234567","+491212345678","","dummy.address@provider.de","addressline1","addressline2","",""
Now you have to count in which column which relevant entry is. You need: Name, email address and perhaps the mobile phone number, depending on if you want to send SMSs with Post/LX or not.
Let´s count in my example:
The name is in column 1 (this is most likely also the case in your cdf file).
The email address is in column 8 (you also have to count empty columns (""))
The mobile phone number is in column 5 (+491231234567).

These column associations are the same for every entry.

Now call PDB2ADR this way:

pdb2adr phone.cdf 1 8 5 0 0 > test.adr

and see if test.adr contains the email addresses and phone numbers in the correct format.

(Alternatively, you can call GDBIO once with the /S parameter, which shows the structure of your database. I.e. the output of GDBIO C:\_DAT\PHONE.PDB /S should show you the field numbers you need, so you don´t need to count. ;-) )

Explanation of the PDB2ADR parameters:
1. input file name, must be comma seperated values file, created with GDBIO from the phone book
2. field number of names
3. field number of email addresses
4. field number of mobile phone numbers
5. field number of category names (see description below)
6. category name if 5th parameter not equal 0, otherwise "0". (see description below)
post.adr means rediretion of the output to the file post.adr. If you leave away the redirection, output is shown on the screen, which is only useful for debugging purposes.

If you don´t want phone numbers to be exported, give a 0 as field number for phone numbers, i.e. pdb2adr phone.cdf 1 8 0 0 0 > test.adr.
You can also give a 0 for the email field, then you won´t get email addresses in your resulting file.

The email addresses are exported in the format
Hertrich, Daniel <dummy.address@provider.de>
and the phone numbers are exported in the format
+491231234567 | Hertrich, Daniel

Please note that email addresses and phone numbers themselves are exported exactly as you enetered them into the phone book, i.e. you have to enter all phone numbers in a format that PDU can directly use. Up to version 2.0, PDU doesn't tolerate any other characters than numbers (even space is not allowed). I asked Stefan Peichl if he could make PDU more tolerant and he did it! Thanks! The new PDU versions (since 2.1, download here) now accepts spaces ( ), dot (.), minus (-), slash (/) and parentheses (()) within a mobile phone number. And of course still the plus at the beginning. So you don´t have to modify all your phone book entries which contained non-number characters for better readability.

So a number like +49.177.1234567 or (0177) 123 45 67 or +49/177-123.45.67 is now accepted.
But be aware that something like +49 (0)177 1234567 will not work, if the 0 between the parentheses is optional, depending on the country code (+49) to be dialed or not. I don´t know if it is also the case in other countries, but here in Germany you have to dial a 0 before a long-distance call but if you dial in from outside Germany using the country code, you must not dial the 0. In the given example, PDU would dial the country code and the zero.

Every email address field in your phone book has to hold just one email address in the usual format name@domain. Nothing else. Otherwise Post/LX will not be able to make use of the entry in post.adr.

Entries with empty email address fields will not be converted into the email address section of the output of PDB2ADR, and entries without mobile phone number will not be taken into the phone number section.

If your test.adr looks good, you can make a backup copy of your original post.adr and let PDB2ADR instead create your post.adr. You even can write a batch file which does that automatically, maybe every night, invoked by the appointment book at 2am, like I do. See a sample batch file for all PDB2xxx programs below!

If you prefer sorted output (the phone.cdf file is not alphabetically sorted!), you have to use a sorting program and run it over the cdf file. I found a program called BIGSORT, written by Turgut Kalfaoglu from Turkey. It is very fast and easy to use. Link see in section "Requirements". Call BIGSORT with the parameter /i, so that it is case insensitive, and redirect its output to a another cdf file, for example phone_s.cdf. Then let PDB2ADR process that sorted file.

If you use commas in your PDB as a delimiter between last and first name ("Hertrich, Daniel" for example), you may have problems with Post/LX as it sees a comma in the To: field as a delimiter between different destinations. To avoid these problems, you should remove all commas from your post.adr file after it has been created. I use sed for this purpose, the command "sed -e s/,//g infile > outfile" creates outfile as a totally comma-less copy of infile.

PDB2ADR Distribution list setup:

Say, you often send emails to all of your family members, maybe to invite them to family meetings or to let them know all the news about your a few months old daughter.

The most convenitent way to do this is to create a distribution list file for Post/LX, say, "family.adr", containing the email addresses of all your family members. PDB2ADR can create that file for you. Just assign all entries which shall be used to create "family.adr" in the built-in phone book to a (new) category named "family" for example.

Then GDBIO the phone book as described above, sort it as described above, create your post.adr as described above and, to create the family.adr, call PDB2ADR in addition that way:

PDB2ADR PHONES.CDF 1 8 0 3 family > family.adr

This will make use of the "category check" feature and create family.adr containing only the plain names and email addresses of those phone book entries which you added the category "family" to. The 5th parameter, which is 3 in my example, is the number of the column in the CDF file which holds the category names. Open PHONES.CDF with a text editor and count which column contains the category to find out which value you have to use here or use the GDBIO c:\_dat\phone.pdb /s command.

When the file has been created, you can compose your message in Post/LX as usual, fill your own email address into the To: header, add a header "BCC" (blind carbon copy) by pressing F2, H and choosing BCC:, and fill it with "file:family.adr".
You could also write that into the To: header, but it is good style not to do this, because if you did that, every receipient of your email could read the email addresses of all other receipients. This is an issue of data privacy protection.

Please note that until version 1.5, PDB2ADR created distribution lists in the \quot;simple\quot; format, i.e. exactly one email address per line. Versions 3.1 and later of Post/LX can handle the more complex distribution list format, which can either contain one email address per line or a name, followed by the email address in the following format per line:
Name <email@address.xy>, which is the usual format for the Post.adr file of Post/LX version 3.1 and above (not compatible with earlier Post/LX versions).

The ALLCATEGORIES feature introduced with version 1.3 of PDB2ADR, is removed again for v2.0, because it is redundant now, since the normal post.adr, created with
pdb2adr phone.cdf 1 8 0 0 0 > post.adr (for example) can be used as a distribution list for all phone book entries, at least in versions 3.1 or later of Post/LX.

Also note that when creating distribution lists, the phone number column parameter doesn´t have any effect, as no phone numbers are included in Post/LX distribution lists.

PDB2QLX setup:

PDB2QLX is a new component introduced in version 2.2 of the PDB2X collection. It enables an automatic email address completion feature for email programs, such as Post/LX, Goin' Postal and others.

It does that by extracting the email addresses from the PDB (as PDB2ADR) and writing the raw email addresses to the dictionary file of Quick/LX. Quick/LX is a program written by Andreas Garzotto and downloadable from D&A Software Homepage, which suggests completion of words during typing, based on a collection of words stored in a dictionary file. It can also be used for email addresses, not only for words, and that is what it is ued for here. PDB2QLX reads either all email addresses or only those belonging to a specific category (e.g. QLX) from the PDB and appends them to the Quick/LX dictionary file c:\_dat\quick.dat.

If you then compose an email and write the beginning of an email address in quick.dat, Quick/LX suggest the rest of the address and by pressing the right arrow key, you confirm and Quick/LX will enter the rest of the address. This is very handy to save time with long email addresses and to avoid typos in the address. It is in most cases even faster than to open the email client´s address book and pick the email address.

See the example batch below for an example how PDB2QLX can be used. Detailed instructions are in the PDB2QLX.C file in the PDB2X.ZIP archive. The following screenshot shows Quick/LX suggesting the address someone.else@gmx.de after typing only som into the address filed of a new Post/LX email message:

In order to keep also the normal dictionary entries of the quick.dat file, it is necessary to do a little processing on each update of the file, not just delete it and let PDB2QLX write it anew, because PDB2QLX cannot keep the non-email entries of the file. See the example batch below. It shows a solution using grep. The line

grep -v ^.*@.*\..* c:\_dat\quick.dat > quick.tmp

looks for email addresses in quick.dat of the format given in the regular expression. It is a simple regexp, which should be sufficient here. It looks for an address of the format *@*.* (* beeing any number of any characters). The option -v lets grep find all lines not matching the regexp. So in quick.tmp there will be the contents of the original quick.dat without the email addresses.

I only let PDB2QLX write some well chosen addresses to the quick.dat file which I need very often. About 10-20 addresses are enough for me. Adding more addresses than necessary blows up the quick.dat file and thus the amount of memory Quick/LX needs constantly. The category check feature of PDB2QLX allows you to select the addresses which should go into quick.dat by simply applying a category (e.g. QLX) to them and letting PDB2QLX only use these categorized addresses. Note that the batch which controls PDB2QLX needs to execute QSYNC after modifying the quick.dat file, otherwise the changes of the file won´t have any effect.

PDB2PHN setup:

For PDB2PHN you can use the same GDBIO-created input CDF file as for PDB2ADR, preferrably the sorted one (phone_s.cdf, see above).

Call PDB2PHN with the followig parameters:

1.: input file name
2.: name field number
3. to max. 7.: column numbers of phone number fields, where the first given field number has the highest priority and the last given number has the lowest priority.
Priority means: PDB2PHN searches the given fields in the order you give them for a phone number. The first number it finds is used. PDB2PHN can only create a file containing records which have one phone number per name and only a phone number, nothing else. So, if you have 4 phone number fields in your database, say, field 4 is the cell phone number, field 5 is the business number, field 7 is the private number and field 9 is an alternative number. If you prefer to have the cell phone number in your cell phone&acute&s phone book, you could use the following command line to call PDB2PHN:

PDB2PHN c:\_tmp\phone_s.cdf 1 4 7 5 8 > c:\_tmp\phonebk.txt

Well, this is only half the work done. You now have a file containing one name per line with one phone number per name in the format Daniel Hertrich|+491771234567.
This file has to be transferred to the cellular phone using WWW/LX and Robot/LX with the Robot script "phone.scr". Please download Robot/LX and phone.scr (comes with the SMS.ZIP package) from www.dasoft.com/filelist.htm and read there about usage. It can transfer whole phone books from and to your cellular phone over cable or over Infrared.

PDB2PIM setup:

PDB2PIM basically copies all contents of your phone.pdb file to a PIM/PE compatible file, i.e. it creates records looking like this:

+p Hertrich, Daniel
   my.email@provider.de
   +49 30 12345678
   +49 177 1234567
   Street address line 1
   Street address line 2
   ZIP code
   City
   Country
   | Here are notes which you may have
   | in your PDB file (created

In order to be able to convert even the notes, you have to create a CDF file containing notes. The GDBIO command line which you used for PDB2ADR and PDB2PHN doesn´t do this. So, create a second CDF file from your PDB using:

GDBIO C:\_DAT\PHONE.PDB /X /N > C:\_TMP\PHONEN.CDF

Now you have a CDF file with notes. This is harder to sort than the other file without notes, but there is a lolution for that. It basically appends every note line to the preceding data line, so every line holds again exactly one record. So it is easy to sort. After sorting it has to be disassembled into the original lines again. All these modifications can be done using SED, the stream editor. See the example batch file below how to call sed before and after sorting! Many thanks to Michel Bel and Tony Hutchins for this smart solution!
If you ever have problems with truncated notes, it may be that one of the programs used here (sed or bigsort or your favorite sort program which you use alternatively to bigsort) cannot handle very long lines. Please see the example batch file at the end of this mage to see how this sorting mechanism works.

Once the sorted CDF file is created, call PDB2PIM with the following parameters:

1. Input file name
2. record delimiter in output file (usually +p, must be 2 characters long and begin with +)
3. to max. 22.: Field numbers to be taken over to the PIM/PE file. No more than 20 fields can be used.
And don´t forget the redirection into the output file again.

That´s all. PDB2PIM creates "+. Contacts.pim" as the first line of the output file, so pim.exe doesn´t complain about the missing time stamp (although it actually isn´t a time stamp ;-) ).

Example batch file for PDB2xxx:

I let my PDB2X.BAT run every night which creates everytime-up-to-date versions of all contact information for every purpose I need them for. I only have to care about my phone.pdb now!

Please don´t use this batch as it is given here, you surely have to adjust paths and file names and field numbers. This batch file is only provided here to give you an idea how I use these tools.

@echo off
:: NEEDS: GDBIO, SED and the PDB2X utilities
:: USES:  SYSLOG utility (not needed, but nice to have)

:: =========== DUMP PDB FILE ============

echo GDBIO without notes...
gdbio c:\_dat\phone.pdb > c:\_tmp\phone.cdf
if errorlevel 1 syslog GDBIO1 ERROR

echo GDBIO with notes...
gdbio c:\_dat\phone.pdb /N /X > c:\_tmp\phonen.cdf
if errorlevel 1 syslog GDBIO2 ERROR

:: =========== SORT DUMPED PDB FILES ============

echo Sorting phone.cdf with BIGSORT...
bigsort /i < c:\_tmp\phone.cdf > c:\_tmp\phone_s.cdf
if errorlevel 1 syslog BIGSORT1 ERROR
del c:\_tmp\phone.cdf

echo Sorting phonen.cdf with SED and BIGSORT...

rem This sorting algorithm is quite sophisticated:
rem 1. sed puts all lines of an entry into one single line,
rem    and puts the marker @~@ between them.
rem 2. bigsort sorts the resulting file line by line
rem 3. sed disassembles the lines again by looking for @~@ and
rem    replacing that pattern with a line break again.

sed -e :a -e "$!N;s/\nN/@~@N/;ta" -e "P;D" c:\_tmp\phonen.cdf > c:\_tmp\phonen.tmp
bigsort.exe /i < c:\_tmp\phonen.tmp > c:\_tmp\phonen_s.tmp
if errorlevel 1 syslog BIGSORT2 ERROR
sed "s/@~@N/\nN/g" c:\_tmp\phonen_s.tmp > c:\_tmp\phonen_s.cdf
del c:\_tmp\phonen.cdf
del c:\_tmp\phonen.tmp
del c:\_tmp\phonen_s.tmp

:: =========== CREATE Post/LX ADDRESS LISTS ============

echo PDB2ADR... Email.ADR (main email address book)
del c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\email.adr
PDB2ADR c:\_tmp\phone_s.cdf 1 8 0 0 0 > c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\email.tmp
if errorlevel 1 syslog PDB2ADR1 ERROR (email.adr)
echo. >> c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\email.tmp
echo ============ END OF AUTOMATICALLY CREATED EMAIL.ADR ============ >> c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\email.tmp
REM REMOVE COMMAS:
sed -e "s/,//g" c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\email.tmp > c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\email.adr
del c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\email.tmp

echo.

echo PDB2ADR... SMS.ADR (contains phone numbers for SMS delivery)
del c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\sms.adr
PDB2ADR c:\_tmp\phone_s.cdf 1 0 6 0 0 > c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\sms.tmp
if errorlevel 1 syslog PDB2ADR1a ERROR (sms.adr)
REM REMOVE COMMAS:
sed -e "s/,//g" c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\sms.tmp > c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\sms.adr
del c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\sms.tmp

echo.

echo PDB2ADR... ABI97.ADR (an Post/LX distribution list based on category check)
del c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\abi97.adr
PDB2ADR c:\_tmp\phone_s.cdf 1 8 0 3 Abi > c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\abi97.tmp
if errorlevel 1 syslog PDB2ADR2 ERROR (abi97.adr)
REM REMOVE COMMAS:
sed -e "s/,//g" c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\abi97.tmp > c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\abi97.adr
del c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\abi97.tmp
copy c:\dfu\wwwlx\adr\abi97.adr a:\_dat\wwwlx

echo.

;; =========== CREATE QUICK/LX ADDRESSES ==============

echo PDB2QLX... 

REM Remove email addresses from quick.dat:
grep -v ^.*@.*\..* c:\_dat\quick.dat > quick.tmp
del c:\_dat\quick.dat
move quick.tmp c:\_dat\quick.dat
c:\bin\qsync

REM Add email addresses to quick.dat (using category QLX in the PDB):
PDB2QLX c:\_tmp\phone_s.cdf 8 3 QLX >> c:\_dat\quick.dat
c:\bin\qsync

echo.
:: =========== CREATE CELL PHONE PHONEBOOK FIILE ============

echo PDB2PHN... PHONEMEM.TXT
if exist c:\_dat\phonemem.txt del c:\_dat\phonemem.txt
PDB2PHN c:\_tmp\phone_s.cdf 1 6 5 4 7 > c:\_dat\phonemem.txt
if errorlevel 1 syslog PDB2PHN ERROR

echo.

:: =========== CREATE PIM CONTACTS FILE ============

echo PDB2PIM...
if exist c:\_dat\pim\data\contacts.pim del c:\_dat\pim\data\contacts.pim
PDB2PIM c:\_tmp\phonen_s.cdf +p 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 8 10 11 12 13 14 > c:\_dat\pim\data\contacts.pim
if errorlevel 1 syslog PDB2PIM ERROR


:end
echo CLEANING UP...
del c:\_tmp\phone_s.cdf
del c:\_tmp\phonen_s.cdf
echo FINISHED!
echo.

Resurrecting an HP 200LX (or 100LX, 1000CX) that was unused for a long time

2018-01-27T09:35:26+00:00

Recently (January 2018) I was asked by a former 200LX user by email, how to resurrect a 200LX that might have upgrades in it (maybe a RAM upgrade, maybe doublespeed). The user could not remember how to get it to life again with all its hardware components and asked me to guide him.

I did, and I thought this might help others, too, so I share that text here with all who might be interested in resurrecting their ancient marvel.

Here is what I wrote to him:

Always remember to put main batteries in first, backup battery second. Because the backup battery will be used to power the RAM as soon as there are no main batteries inserted. Always use a fresh backup battery (CR2032 Lithium coin cell) with negative pole facing upwards.
After inserting main batteries, the Palmtop should boot into the Application manager. If it doesn't, check, if there is a PCMCIA card inserted. If there is a card inserted and it contains a config.sys, the boot procedure will use the config.sys from the card and the system may not boot up as expected.

First, there is the self test implemented in the BIOS (start it with switching the Palmtop on using the keyboard combo ESC-On). That test routine is able to detect the amount of installed RAM, EXCEPT if there is a larger memory upgrade installed. Those larger upgrades were not addressable using the standard address lines of the processor, but needed 1 or 2 additional I/O lines of the processor so they could be addressed, hence they needed a special software driver to be available in any way to the system. Everything up to 4MB was addressable directly and would be detected by the self-test. 8MB upgrades were either "natively" addresed or only accessible via additional lines (i.e. needing a driver) and everything larger than 8MB was, IIRC, only accessible using a driver.
Hence, if the self-test tells you that there are 1MB or 2MB installed, it doesn't mean that there isn't maybe a, 8, 32, 64 or 96MB RAM upgrade installed. ;-)

If it says "4MB" or "8MB", there are only 4MB or 8MB installed, as 2MB of the 4MB are located on a daughterboard, and there cannot be two daughterboards installed. RAM upgrades always come on a daughterboard, except some(!) 8MB upgrades, which were soldered directly onto the mainboard.

If the power-on self test isn't readable, i.e. the letters are blurred, mixed up, shifted or something like that, there is a speed upgrade installed. The speed upgrade blurs the screen on most devices and needs a software driver ("doublespeed driver") to make all affected parts of the system work normal again. Affected are: Screen readability, frequency of beep sounds from the speaker, the serial port (baud rate is approximately doubled and won't sync well with the peer), function of some PCMCIA cards. Also the overall system speed is affected, but that's the wanted effect, which is not reverted by the driver. All software runs double as fast as before.

However, if the screen of the self-test is readable, it doesn't necessarily mean there is no speed upgrade installed. As I said above: Readability is only affected on most, not all devices. You can check presence of a doublespeed upgrade in the "timer" item of the self-test. It will report "Not OK", if a speed upgrade is installed.

I have packed a bunch of drivers for some speed and RAM upgrades as well as the backlight upgrade into ZIP files that you can use as CF card images: Simply unzip, put the contents into the root of a compatible CF or flash card, put the card into the slot and power on the Palmtop so that it boots. This will go into a driver installation routine, which will try to make a good job detecting what hardware is installed. Not fail-safe, but a little help maybe.

Please drop me a line, if you need such a card image.

Remember that if you have a larger memory upgrade that creates an additional drive in DOS, you will need to swap drives C: and F: (or at least you *should* do that, so that standard software saves its stuff on the larger drive). That also means, that the config.sys loading the RAM upgrade driver (and doublespeed driver, if applicable), needs to be installed on the small native drive, and a small autoexec.bat that swaps the drives also resides there, but another autoexec.bat that's executed afterwards needs to reside on the larger drive. The one on the smaller drive passes control over to the one on the larger drive after swapping drives, if I remember correctly.

In case you want to resurrect a doublespeed LX and need to transfer the doublespeed driver via serial port to the Palmtop before you can install it, there is a method to make the serial port work normally even without the driver. I quote here the sectoin from the Times2Tech doublespeed driver documentation, that describes that method:

Note: All keys within <> are referencing a single key on the palmtop keyboard.

We realize that some palmtop screens are extremely hard to read when the speed upgrade driver isn't running, so you may have to work blindly when entering the debug scripts below. It is best to start from the DOS prompt outside of System Manager and not from a DOS shell within System Manager. To exit System Manager do the following key sequence:

<&...><MENU>AT<ENTER>

This DEBUG script temporarily fixes the screen and totally restores the use of the serial port:

DEBUG
A
MOV AL,1E
OUT 22,AL
MOV AL,FD
OUT 23,AL
MOV AL,21
OUT 22,AL
MOV AL,01
OUT 23,AL
RET
<ENTER>
G
Q

You can also try to set your baud rate to be half of what the PC is using and you should be able to transfer files as well, but this method is not guaranteed to work.

Also check all the other articles about the HPLX Palmtops: View all HP Palmtop Articles. They might also give you hints for your procedure of resurrecting your Palmtop!

Tutorial: Internet connection sharing for HP Palmtops (using PPP)

2009-10-14T13:41:36+00:00

Archived 2013-12-08
This page has been archived and some links may not work correctly anymore. No updates of this page will be done anymore.

Internet connection sharing for HP Palmtops

Or: How to connect a handheld or other PC via serial line to a PC to use its Internet connection
Especially: Sharing an HP Omnibook 800CT wireless LAN access over IrDA with an HP 200LX palmtop

last updated:

Contents of this page:

Introduction:

If you have a PC at your home or at work which is connected to the Internet via a fast and reliable connection, such as DSL, Ethernet, ATM, X25 or even via modem or ISDN, and if you have a handheld computer which you also want to connect to the Internet from time to time, for up- and downloading emails, for example, you may not want to establish an extra expensive Internet connection via modem or GSM, but rather want to make use of the existing connection.

This is possible. I will describe here how to set up a PC running Linux or Windows so that you can connect your handheld via serial port or IrDA to the PC and use the Internet connection of the PC also with your handheld.

Since I use the HP 200LX palmtop and only Linux on my PCs, I will focus mostly on these points of view, but I will also describe how to set up Windows on the "server" side and any communication software on the "client" side.

Windows server: MochaPPP:

First download MochaPPP from http://www.mochasoft.dk/download.html (look for the "Mocha W32 PPP" in the "Palm and Visor" section) and install it on your Windows machine.

Then

run the program MPPP.EXE.
Set speed to 38400 (once this works you can go higher and explore the limits, make sure you have always set the client machine to the same speed!)
Tell MochaPPP what device you use (if you use the HP 200LX palmtop, tell MochaPPP it was a WinCE device)
Since I have never worked with MochaPPP I cannot say exactly how to set it up for an IrDA connection, but since Windows usually assigns a virtual COM port to an IrDA interface, you should probably simply shoose this virtual COM port as the port to be used by MochaPPP.
Then connect your already configured client device to the PC. Use a nullmodem cable, not a straight-through serial cable! For more information about these different kinds of cables, also related to the palmtop HP200LX, please see my RS232 page!

Unfortunately, Windows 2000 and Windows XP use another driver concept as the older Windows versions, so there is no "virtual COM port" assigned to an IrDA device anymore. There are thiird party drivers to solve this problem:

A free open-source solution: http://www.ircomm2k.de
The commercial IrComm2000 driver: http://www.extendedsystems.com

Click here to jump to the client setup guide.

Linux server: pppd and IP masquerading / forwarding:

Assuming you have already a working internet connection, I will now guide you through the steps necessary to share that Internet connection with a device attached to the serial port or IrDA port of your linux machine.

The short story

A simple shell script can do the job under certain circumstances. I suggest you to try that way first, and if it doesn't work, use the detailled instructions below.

The shell script looks like this (I have named it "/sbin/palmtop_gateway"; you have to run it as root):

#!/bin/sh

# Setup IP masquerading on your Internet connection network device
# (change "wlan0" to the appropriate device, e.g. ppp0, eth0, ippp0...):

iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o "wlan0" -j MASQUERADE

# This is for IrDA connection on an HP Omnibook 800 notebook only
# comment it out if you don´t use an Omnibook 800:

modprobe vlsi_ir

# This is for IrDA connections only (not only Omnibook 800)
# comment it out if you use a serial connection instead of IrDA:

ifconfig irda0 up

# This is the PPP server (PPPD) call within an infinite loop:

while [ 1 ]
do
/usr/sbin/pppd /dev/ircomm0 38400 172.16.96.10:172.16.96.11 proxyarp local noauth silent nodetach ktune ms-dns 217.5.100.1
done

Adapt the pppd line to your needs:

/usr/bin/pppd is the location of the pppd binary,
/dev/ircomm0 is the name of the port where the device is connected which shall use the Linux computer's Internet connection. (/dev/ttyS1 for "COM2", /dev/ttyS0 for "COM1", /dev/ircomm0 for an IrDA port...),
38400 is the baud rate, you can probably go higher, but try this one first,
the following two IP addresses are the one pppd uses on the Linux machine and the one the client should get. You can probably use the ones used here, except you already have a private subnet which uses these IP addresses. They must be unique in your subnet.
proxyarp tells pppd to handle ARP requests on behalf of the connected device
local Tells pppd not to use modem control features.
noauth Bypasses all authentication. You can also set it up to use e.g. CHAP or PAP. But noauth should be enough for private use it you do not use a dialup connection between the Linux PC and the device which you connect
silent Tells pppd to wait for the connecting device to send LCP packets rather than trying (and failing) when no device is connected. Replaces the 'passive' option in older versions.
nodetach Tells pppd to stay attached to the controlling terminal rather than forking off as a background process. We want ONE pppd in charge of this vty!
ktune tells the kernel to enable IP forwarding
ms-dns xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Tells pppd to send our DNS server (217.5.100.1 in my case) parameters to the attached device. This avoids having to hard-code values on the client, in case things change.

This shell script needs the executable "iptables", a newer version of pppd which supports the ktune parameter and the NAT (network address translation) kernel modules.

Usage: Simply adapt this script to your needs and start it. If it leads to error messages, try to find the reason. If it doesn´t, connect the device which should participate in the internet connection of the Linux computer and let it connect. When you don´t need the Internet connection sharing anymore, stop the script by pressing (and maybe holding for some seconds) Ctrl-C.

If this setup doesn´t work for some reason, or if you want a more sophisticated setup where you don´t need to manually start a script, read on!

Click here to jump to the client setup guide.

The long story

Attention: The following things have to be done as root, so be careful!

The first thing you need is the ability of Linux to share its Internet connection at all. This is done by a mechanism called IP forwarding and IP masquerading. If you want to learn more about these techniques, please read the IP masquerading howto. There are more than one way to setup IP masquerading and forwarding, please consult the manuals and docs of your Linux distribution to learn how to do it in a distribution-specific way. I describe it here in a generic way which should work for all distributions using a recent kernel version (i.e. 2.4.0 or above). If you have another kernel version, you should read the IP masquerading howto.

First, switch on everything which is necessary for IP forwarding and masqerading in the kernel configuration and compile a new kernel. Maybe this is not necessary in some cases. If you don´t feel comfortable compiling a new kernel, don't do it first and try if it works with your current kernel. You need to go into the "networking options" and switch the netfiler on. Then in the netfiler section everything related to NAT and IP forwarding has to be enabled.

My relevant sections in /usr/src/linux/.config look like this:

#
# Networking options
#
CONFIG_PACKET=y
# CONFIG_PACKET_MMAP is not set
CONFIG_NETLINK=y
CONFIG_RTNETLINK=y
CONFIG_NETLINK_DEV=m
CONFIG_NETFILTER=y
# CONFIG_NETFILTER_DEBUG is not set
# CONFIG_FILTER is not set
CONFIG_UNIX=y
CONFIG_INET=y
CONFIG_IP_MULTICAST=y
# CONFIG_IP_ADVANCED_ROUTER is not set
# CONFIG_IP_PNP is not set
# CONFIG_NET_IPIP is not set
# CONFIG_NET_IPGRE is not set
# CONFIG_IP_MROUTE is not set
# CONFIG_ARPD is not set
# CONFIG_INET_ECN is not set
# CONFIG_SYN_COOKIES is not set

#
#   IP: Netfilter Configuration
#
CONFIG_IP_NF_CONNTRACK=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_FTP=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_QUEUE=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_IPTABLES=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_LIMIT=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_MAC=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_MARK=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_MULTIPORT=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_TOS=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_TCPMSS=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_STATE=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_UNCLEAN=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_OWNER=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_FILTER=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_REJECT=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_MIRROR=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_NEEDED=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_MASQUERADE=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_REDIRECT=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_FTP=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MANGLE=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_TOS=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_MARK=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_LOG=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_TCPMSS=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_COMPAT_IPCHAINS=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_NEEDED=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_COMPAT_IPFWADM=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_NEEDED=y
CONFIG_IPV6=m

Also make sure the driver for the serial port and / or IrDA interface is included into the kernel or compiled as module. I assume it works already. If not, please make it work before you go on. Especially an IrDA driver may be a bit tricky to set up. I use the HP Omnibook 800CT with its IrDA driver vlsi_ir by Martin Diehl to share the wireless LAN access with my HP 200LX palmtop. Please note that the vlsi_ir driver is included in the Linux kernel since version 2.4.9. In order to make IrDA work on my Omnibook I use this script:

#!/bin/sh
modprobe vlsi_ir
modprobe ircomm
ifconfig irda0 up
echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/irda/discovery
echo Discovery says:
cat /proc/net/irda/discovery

(The last three lines are optional. They show you if another device is in the range of the IrDA interface. You will see the name it identifies itself with.)

In order to set up the netfilter, you need the iptables package (if you do not have it already), which you can download at http://netfilter.samba.org/. I use version 1.2.4.

Also you need the pppd (PPP daemon), which is certainly part of your Linux distribution.

Now we can start setting the whole thing up. In order to enable IP forwarding and masquerading, execute

echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
/usr/local/sbin/iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o "eth0" -j MASQUERADE

The first line enables forwarding (not necessary when using a recent version of pppd! The pppd parameter ktune can do that job for you!), the second line enables masquerading. Replace eth0 by your network device which is connected to the Internet. (Probably ppp0 if you use a dial-up connection, ippp0 for ISDN, wlan0 for wireless LAN...., find out with "ifconfig" while you have an active Internet connection). the iptables binary may be placed on another location than /usr/local/sbin - change that if necessary.

Palmtop user Ed Padin reported success using ipchains instead of iptables using this command:

ipchains -l forward -j MASQ

If you have troubles starting iptables, try to unload the ipchains module, which can disturb iptables (rmmod ipchains).

You can put the IrDA module calls and the iptables / ipchains setups into /etc/init.d/boot.local, so it is executed automatically at boot time.

Now you must set up the Linux computer as a PPP server for the attached device, using the pppd. This can either be done using a simple pppd call from a shell script as described above, or you can use init to start the pppd as a deamon in background. Here is an example how to call it for runlevels 2,3,4 and 5:
Append a line to /etc/inittab:

palm:2345:respawn:/usr/sbin/pppd /dev/ircomm0 38400 172.16.96.10:172.16.96.11 proxyarp local noauth silent nodetach ktune ms-dns 217.5.100.1

(Adapt the parameters as described above) When you have appended this line to the inittab, run a telinit q to let the system reread the file and use the new settings. maybe a killall pppd is necessary to kill an old pppd and to let the new one start automatically after a change of parameters. You can check easily if the correct pppd runs by typing ps -x | grep pppd.

That´s it. After configuring your client device you should be able to use the PC´s Internet connection over the serial port. Click here to jump to the client setup guide.

Client configuration:

In general you can use any software on the client machine which is able to talk the PPP protocol over the serial port or the IrDA port. For setting up a Palm, please go to the top of this page and follow the Palm link under "Related pages". Here I will describe the process of setting up the WWW/LX software on the HP 200LX palmtop, but this should also show how to set up every other piece of software.

Here are the relevant parts from my WWW/LX config file www.cfg:

[Setup]
...
PPPD_linux_IR=pppd on linux Omnibook IrDA

[pppd_script]
s=\r
@=3

[PPPD_linux_IR]
Port=-1
OmniGo=0
PPP=1
Modem=0
Baud=38400
My_IP=0.0.0.0
DNS_IP=0.0.0.0
DNS2_IP=0.0.0.0
Script=pppd_script
ModemInit=
Dial=
Login=
Password=

Explanation:

The Setup entry is WWW/LX specific and only adds a short description to the setup name.
[pppd_script] is the script WWW/LX uses when connecting over the serial line. It is a very simple script which does the following:
- s=\r -- send a carriage return (= press the Enter key)
- @=3 -- pauses for 3 seconds before PPP connection begins.
The remaining lines are the settings WWW/LX uses for the connection:
- Port=-1: Use port COM1 and set it to IrDA mode. Attention: On the HP 200LX this is only possible with WWW/LX, not with pther software, because the IrDA protocol is totally implemented in software, there is no generic IrDA support by that device! See also my IrDA page! Use Port=1 for a wired serial port connection (i.e. on the Server side /dev/ttySx or COMx).
- PPP=1: Use the PPP protocol
- Modem=0: Use a direct serial line
- Baud=38400: Must match the speed setting on the Server side!
- MY_IP, DNS_IP, DNS2_IP=0.0.0.0 tells WWW/LX to determine the correct values during the login process. You can also give it statically here if you have troubles with the dynamical setup. The dynamical setup has the advantage that you have to change it only on the server side if something changes.
- Script=pppd_script: The script to use for the login process
- ModemInit=, Dial=, Login=, Password=: Since no authentication and no modem is used, these parameters do not need any value.

Attention WWW/LX users who use setcom.bat in conjunction with modem.com to let the palmtop determine automatically the necessary WWW/LX settings: Since a wired connection to a Linux PC running pppd (and eventually even MochaPPP on Windows machines) causes modem.com to think there is a modem and let setcom.bat then execute wwwset.exe with your modem settings, make sure these settings do not interfere with your remaining setup for this kind of connection!