PS/2-to-IR mouse works with Aero 8000

Some folks who've been around here for a while may recall that I was able to use the IBM Director infrared mouse successfully with my H/PC 2000 Fujitsu PenCentra 200. The Director communicates by IR signal to a receiver that plugs into the PS/2 port. Well, having just acquired another H/PC with a PS/2 port (Compaq Aero 8000), I of course had to test it there too - and, yes, it works with the Aero 8000 too.

So, there's an alternative for those of us whose fingertips are getting irritated from repeated touchpad use.

Another small bonus: I tried an old Philips IR keyboard (pre-Windows, thus with no Windows key) with a PS/2 IR receiver, and it works with the Aero too. I think I can safely assume it'll also work with the PenCentra.

Don't forget to HCL them

Done!

Hi CE Geek,

What a coicidence! A short while ago I recalled that 8-9 years ago I saw on the market an infrared mouse with PS/2 IR receiver (can't remember the brand), but nobody seems to remember about it now. I was wondering if such an IR mouse can be turned to work directly with serial IR compatible HPC and PPC devices. Difficult to say as long as no brand, model and documentation available.
What do you think?

Arlex

Edited by arlex 2009-02-28 8:36 AM

Dunno for sure, but I suspect that in the absence of the intervening IR-to-PS/2 hardware, the Windows CE device would need a separate driver for reading infrared mouse signals directly - and I'm not aware of the existence of an infrared mouse driver that supports Windows CE. (Can't believe no one ever tried the idea, though.)

Edited by CE Geek 2009-02-28 3:05 PM

Don't know if no one ever tried the idea, fact is that there is no application on the market.
For sure the number of those users willing to use a mouse with their PDA is quite small, so not a representative segment of the market. For PCs radio based apllications seems to be more convenient than IR, so most probably the PDA segment will copy that. I managed to find what appears to be the first Bluetooth mouse driver for Windows mobile, see at
http://www.teksoftco.com/index.php?section=products&pid=5
Don't know if it works with HPC or only with PPC WM5 and WM6. In the near future I intend to buy a BT mouse and test it on both my WM6 PDA and Jornada 720.