I was looking at the schematics of how to create a cradle charger (see dumbuser's post) and got to wondering what are the additional pins in the Palm for? The Visor connection has 8, with two for the USB line, versus the 10 in the PalmIII. Since the PalmIII obviously DOESN'T needs pins dedicated to the USB, what are the other four pins for?
(Thanks for helping somebody obviously to lazy to wade through the Palm devzone.)
(Oops. Forgot the "doesn't". Of course Palm doesn't support USB.)
[This message has been edited by Goyena (edited 12-20-1999).]
12-17-1999 02:55 PM
wrp
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Registered: Nov 1999
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Posts: 70
The 3Com Palm Pilot/III/V/VII models do NOT use USB connectors. They transfer soley via a serial connection, so that's the reason for the extra pins: line control, etc. (DTR, RTS, CD, RX, TX, etc.)
Since USB handles all its data information on two USB lines, it requires fewer connectors.
12-18-1999 02:42 AM
Cyrus
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Registered: Dec 1999
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Posts: 18
The visor uses both USB and serial.
Go to Handspring's site and check out the technical docs.
The palm pilots all have one pin that does nothing (isn't connected to anything) but other than that, I'm not sure.
The only pins needed for a serial connection are RXD, TXD, and ground. The rest of the pins may or may not be needed depending on what you are connecting to. The visor only has these for serial communication.