if only that were all...

the max3100 is a irda timing converter only; bit timing in irda conserves power by minimizing the led on-time. other companies have chips like this based on a texas instruments microcontroller with the same 3Mhz crystal; maxim appears to be doing roughly the same thing but tied to spi instead.

the example maxim code they showed only takes care of byte slamming in infrared. it does not implement the irda protocol. this is the common deal-breaker as the specification is impossible and companies sell the 8051 code for $50K or a peice of your action (company i spoke with said, before we tell you what we'll charge for the code, tell use how much you expect to make in profits - so we wrote our own). more competition will drive these prices down but irda does have a great future with the convenience of bluetooth despite its horrible security issues.

regarding your john s. product idea... 8051 doesn't have the memory or the power to do proper resyncing of data. microsoft didn't appreciate the complexity of resyncing data initially, but then again when do they let poor software implementation slow them down from selling it? most resync tools now use internet based servers to allow the provider the ability to fix their software without changing any field installations.

even for your datacollector resyncing, you're not likely to get it done correctly without the advice of a phd in operations research or maybe more cheaply, a phd in computer science. i've done this sort of thing for a chemical company.

probably john s. is realizing that the palm is a handy data collection portal - he's correct... i use it in my product line for that very purpose.

if you want to really hash out the feasibility of a product idea, let me know.

duh