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

last updated: Wednesday, 11-Jun-2008 23:54:33 CEST

Contents of this page:

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.

  1. via PCMCIA card
  2. via serial cable
  3. via infrared
  4. 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:

  1. The palmtop´s IR port is not IrDA compatible by itself
  2. The palmtop´s IR port is heavily disturbed by the electromagnetic field that surrounds the phone´s antenna
(If you want to know details about IrDA and the palmtop please read my IrDA-related page!)
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.

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.

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.

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).

Motorola phones:

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.

other phones

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:

I expect that the following would also work:

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,

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: 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 differen 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:


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