Connecting Ronja to a PC

Connecting the IrDA interface

You have to locate the IrDA connector on your motherboard. Following picture should enlighten, how the connector looks like:

The connector is a male. Consists of 10 gold-plated pins, spaced 2.54 mm apart. This picture is taken from a FIC VA-503+ manual. Consult you own motherboard's manual for where to look for this connector.

You need a suitable female piece to connect onto this connector. Use following three wires, no more: IRRX2 (data go into PC), IRTX2 (data go from the PC outwards), GND (common ground). I recommend a shielded wire for EM compatibility.

These three wires connect your PC with Ronja's IrDA interface:

The left wire goes to the PC. On the right side you can see the two coaxial cables with two BNC connectors. On this picture

you can also well see the two LED's indicating data transmission (red: TX) and reception (yellow: RX).

The internals of the IrDA interface are simple: several resistors, capacitor, LEDs and a transistor.

When using the IrDA connector, you have to click up in you BIOS that you want to have a "high, high" polarity of the IrDA signals and tell the BIOS to enable the IrDA interface in SIR mode. The connection is complete. You have to lead a bunch of wires into your PC or place some non-standard connector into some empty slot because IrDA SIR is according to my knowledge never lead out to an ordinary connector.

Connecting the parallel interface for 666 Lucifer

Connect the connector into the parallel and take the necessary 5V source from keyboard connector or game connector. Don't short-circuit the 5V as these connectors don't have the fuse and you could damage the power supply of your PC or damage the boards. I have once shorted up the 5V and ground of my SMPS in the PC and switched the power on and nothing happened -- there were no voltage. I don't know what happens if you short them up while the PC is switched on.

Connecting the Ronja 57 Sunprick modem interface

In an ideal case, ROnja 57 Sunprick should behave as an unpowered leased line. The pins of RJ11 to which the two wires will be connected will be determined later. You simply push the plu into you modem and set up your OS so that he doesn't try to do dialing nor any other weird stuff: just lift and talk. Then you have good chances with undisturbed transmission (which could work for some kiilometers?) you get the full 57bps speed.

Note: some types of modem are not capable of operating on non-powered lines. This problem can be solved by connecting the apprpriate voltage through a suitable resistor directly to Ronja's output. The output is protected by a capacitor.

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