Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: kevin.messick@cas.org (Kevin Messick) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: IllumiLink 2.5 and AirLink 2.5 Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Date: 5 Oct 1993 21:00:41 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 539 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <28sn9p$leg@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: kevin.messick@cas.org (Kevin Messick) NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.7.128.1 Keywords: hardware, infrared, controller, audio, commercial PRODUCT NAME IllumiLink 2.5 and AirLink 2.5 BRIEF DESCRIPTION IllumiLink is an Infra Red (IR) Universal Programmable Remote Controller for the Amiga. It consists of a hardware device that attaches to the mouse port, and software. It also comes with hardware for using a cordless telephone for controlling your Amiga. AirLink is a subset of IllumiLink that doesn't include the telephone capabilities. I've tried to note anything that applies only to IllumiLink. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Geodesic Designs Inc. Address: P.O. Box 956068 Duluth, GA 30136 USA Telephone: (404) 822-0566 LIST PRICE I've had IllumiLink for about 1 year, so don't remember the exact price, but it was somewhere around $90 (US). I believe AirLink is around $60 (US). SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS The package comes with all software and hardware needed. HARDWARE None. SOFTWARE I've used the package under both AmigaDOS 1.3 and 3.0. If you have only 1.3, you should strongly consider purchasing ARexx to get the full functionality of this package. The rexxsyslib.library and RexxMast command are included with the package for people who only have 1.3 and don't have ARexx. COPY PROTECTION None. The program installs on a hard drive and does not need the original disks any time after that. I've never tried booting from the floppy disk, so I'm not sure if the floppy is even bootable. All save files are placed in user-specified locations. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 1000 512KB Chip RAM, 1MB Fast RAM Commodore 256KB RAM expansion Original Insider Board with battery-backed clock and 1MB of memory. C-Ltd. 33MB hard drive Kickstart and Workbench V1.3 1080 monitor Amiga 4000/40 2MB Chip RAM, 8MB Fast RAM Seagate 120MB hard drive Kickstart and Workbench V3.0 1080 monitor REVIEW I've been waiting for a package like IllumiLink for a while now. When my home was being built, I wired IR receivers in every room that run down to an IR repeater in the basement. The IR repeater can have up to 3 IR transmitters attached to it. I put all my stereo equipment, cable box, VCR, etc. down in the basement with one of the transmitters aimed at them. I can control all of it from any room. I'd bought a few of those Radio shack universal remotes, but I'm not really impressed with them. Plus, I wanted to be able to control everything from the Amiga. IllumiLink was the first package I've seen that looked like it did what I wanted. I should probably explain what a universal IR remote control is. Normally, your CD player remote can only control the CD player. A universal remote can control the CD player, plus the receiver, and usually other devices as well. You just switch to whatever device you want, and the buttons on the remote send out different IR commands for the new device. I've seen universal remotes for sale that can control 4, 6, or 8 devices. Generally there is some setup required. The remotes come programmed with the IR commands for hundreds of devices, and you tell it which ones you have. Programmable universal remotes are just like universal remotes, only they don't come pre-programmed. You have to program them yourself. This generally involves putting the remote in "learn mode," pushing one of the buttons, and then pointing your old remote at it and pushing what button you want it to learn. IllumiLink is a programmable universal remote. It does come with with a few examples, but I think they're mainly for giving ideas on how to set things up than for using as pre-programmed remotes. The reasoning behind universal remotes is to reduce clutter. By controlling all (or most) of your devices with one remote, you can put the old remotes in a closet and just have the one remote out. I've found that having the universal remote just adds one more remote to the clutter - I use the universal remote, and my wife uses all the others (universal remotes take some getting used to since the button labels are wrong for a lot of the devices). I was pretty excited when I found IllumiLink (in the Amazing Amiga Product Guide) and had my dealer order it. After it came in, I took it home and installed it on my hard drive. The software doesn't come with an installation program, but does have installation instructions included in a "readme" file. All you need to do is copy everything from the disk to a directory on the hard drive. There are no Assigns that need to be done. You should put the AIR command into a directory in your PATH or add the Illumilink C directory to your PATH. The IllumiLink hardware is a little brown box about 1.5"x2.5"x0.5" with a mouse jack (9 pin D connector) on one end, a stereo jack (like they use for portable tape player head-phones) on one side, and a modular telephone jack on the other side. The box can be plugged directly into the mouse port, but I've found it more convenient to use the 6' extension cable that came with the package. There is also a stereo Y adaptor that plugs into the stereo jack and terminates with 2 RCA phono jacks. An IR transmitter with a RCA phono plug plugs into the right jack, and the left jack is an input for a tone generator. You can get an extension phono cable to run from the right phono jack to the plug on the IR transmitter to make it more convenient to use (this cable is not included - I bought one from Radio Shack for about $2 (US)). The box, in addition to the jacks, contains an IR receiver, an IR transmitter, a red LED, and a yellow LED. When the box is receiving IR signals, the yellow LED flashes. When the box is transmitting IR signals, the red LED flashes. All of this is located inside the box and can't be seen (until the LEDs start to flash). Once you have the hardware attached to the mouse port (turn off the computer during installation, just to be safe), and the software installed (either on a hard drive or a backup copy of the floppy), you're ready to go. The first thing you need to do is set up an AirWindow. This is a normal Workbench window that looks like a remote control. The window takes a little getting used to because, when it is active, none of the normal window borders or gadgets are visible - it just looks like a picture of a remote. The borders and gadgets are still there, but you can't see them. If you click in the upper right corner, the window will cycle front-to-back like normal. When the window is not active, the borders and gadgets reappear. Setting up the AirWindow isn't very hard, but it does take time - it probably took me 3-4 hours to set up my first one. I can do it in about an hour now. The first thing you have to do is get a picture of the remote. You can scan in a picture of the real remote, draw one using a paint program, or just draw a box with some buttons on it. The image doesn't have to look like the real remote, although that might be best. You'll want to make sure each of the buttons are labeled with what you want them to do. Once you have the image, save it as a brush. I'm not sure what all paint programs let you do this, but DPaint (II or IV) works fine. Next, you'll need to start up an AirWindow (using one of the sample ones provided) and load the new image on top of it. The old AirWindow resizes to the size of the new image. You then delete the old gadgets and start defining new ones. A gadget is a spot on the AirWindow where you can click and have a command executed. They can be anywhere, but it's best to make them where you've drawn button boxes on the image :-). You define gadgets by putting the AirWindow in gadget definition mode and then, for each gadget, point to where the upper-left corner of the gadget is, click, hold and drag to the bottom-right corner. After the gadgets are all defined, they need to be named and the Hold flag set. The Hold flag tells whether the gadget continues to transmit IR commands if it is held down (like a volume control). The names are (as near as I can tell) only used to specify what gadgets to activate through ARexx. Once you have the gadgets defined and named, you need to program them. A separate program is supplied (called "sample") for programming the gadgets. You start the sample program, put it in autosample mode, put the AirWindow (that you just created) into sample mode, push one of the defined gadgets, and then hold down the button on the real remote that you want for that gadget. The sample program tells you when to start holding down the button on the real remote and then draws a picture of the IR command when it is done. You keep repeating these steps until all the gadgets have been programmed. Then you save the AirWindow (it will get saved with an icon) and quit the sample program. Once you have the AirWindow set up, you just click on one of the gadgets you defined, and the IR command associated with that gadget gets transmitted. In my case, I've got an AirWindow set up that contains all the buttons from my receiver and CD player. When I want to hear some music, I click on the POWER button in the AirWindow and I've got music. I can use the CD player, or tune to an FM station (I don't listen to AM). You don't need to start and AirWindow by clicking on its icon. You can run the Air command directly and specify the AirWindow file to use. I start up my window in my User-Startup, so it is always available. When you have an AirWindow open, you can click on the standard close or zoom gadgets (or where they normally are since you can't see them) to iconify the window. When an AirWindow is iconified, it gets reduced to just the title bar (with normal system gadgets). You can control the AirWindow startup through tooltypes in the icon or with options to the Air command if running from the CLI. The tooltypes and options are: Tooltype CLI option Purpose ICONIFY=ON - +i - Start up the window iconified EXIT=ON - +exit - Quit window after doing NOW Links VBEAM=ON - +vb - Turn on vertical beam timing PRIORITY=N - +p N - Set the input even priority AREXX=name - +arexx name - Set the ARexx port name INPUT=name - +input name - Set the input event port name Link IN<> OUT<> - - Any link command (see below) The following menu items are available from the AirWindow. Project Quit - exits the AirWindow Info - prints info about the Air program Load Links - Load links from a different AirWindow Load Gads - Load gadgets from a different AirWindow Load IFF - Load a new IFF brush file Load Air - Load a different AirWindow Save Air - Save the current AirWindow Arexx=PORT - Set the ARexx port name User-Menus Menu 1 - User defined menu item for links ... Menu 10 - User defined menu item for links Gadgets (set AirWindow mode) Transmit - Transmit IR command (normal mode) Move - Move gadgets around Move All - Move blocks of gadgets around Size - Change size of gadgets Sample - receive IR command (program mode) Name - Name gadgets Add - Add new gadgets Del - Delete gadgets Flashing - Make gadgets flash for visibility Delete All - Delete all gadget information Links (see below for an explanation of links) List Links - Show all links for the AirWindow List Mouse - Show last 20 mouse clicks Del Links - Delete all link information Read Links - Read links from text file Write Links - Write links to text file Settings IR Output Test Mode - Send IR command continuously JoyPort 2 - Send IR command through 2nd mouse port Par. 0 - 7 - Send IR command through parallel port Audio L., R. - Send IR command through audio channel User Info Text On - Custom Users Info Mode active or not Load Text - Load text to user info window Save Text - Save text from user info window User Menu Text On - Custom User Menu Mode active or not Load Text - Load text to user menus Save Text - Save text from user menus IR Burst = N - Adjust the number IR signal bursts IR Data Read IR Raw - Load IR data from text file Write IR Raw - Save IR data to text file Phone Input (IllumiLink only) On - Toggles the phone interface on or off Test Win. - Open test phone window This is about the extent of my use of IllumiLink. I've used ARexx a few times to send commands to my AirWindow. They work, that's about all I can say about it right now. Most of what follows is what I've picked up from reading the manual, but haven't really tried. Actually, transmitting IR commands when you click on a button is only a small part of what IllumiLink can do. Its main function is to link input types to output types. There is a list of 11 input types, and 11 output types. You can set things up so that whenever one of the input types occurs, IllumiLink makes the output type occur. Using an AirWindow to control an IR device is really a link from a gadget input type to and IR output type. The list of input and output types are: Input Output ========================================= Key Key Menu Menu Gad Message Gadup Mouse Now Exec Timer Control Arexx_In Arexx_Out Serial_In Serial_Out MIDI_In MIDI_Out Par_In Par_Out Phone* IR (* Phone is only useful with IllumiLink.) The Key input type activates an output link when a certain key is pressed. Qualifiers are allowed (up to four) and any key is legal. The Key output type simulates a keystroke to another program. The Menu input type activates an output link when an AirWindow User Menu is chosen (up to 10 allowed). The Menu output type activates the User Menus as if they were chosen with the mouse. The Gad input type activates the output links associated with a gadget in an AirWindow when you click on the gadget. You can define more links for a gadget that will get executed before the IR type (if one is set up). The GadUp input type works like the Gad input type except it is activated when the mouse button is released. The Now input type activates the output type it is linked to as soon as the Air program starts up. The Timer input type is used to activate an output type repeatedly every given number of seconds. Arexx_In input type creates custom ARexx commands that execute the output event when executed through ARexx. The Serial_In input type is used to activate output links whenever a certain character is received (the baud rate is selectable). The MIDI_In input type is used to activate output links when MIDI note ON or note OFF events are received. You can specify the MIDI channel and note number. The Par_In input type is used to activate output links when data lines on the parallel port go high or low. You can choose which line (0-7). The Phone input type is only used by IllumiLink. It links a phone button press with an output event. The Message output type opens a window on the Workbench for one second and displays the given message. The Mouse output type simulates a left mouse button click (either one or two clicks) at a given location or a menu mouse button click. The Exec output type runs any program in the background. The Control output type is used to control a number of variables the affect the Air program behavior. The Arexx_Out output type allows you to execute any ARexx program. The Serial_Out output type allows a string of characters to be sent to the serial port. The baud rate can be specified. The MIDI_Out output type transmits up to three MIDI bytes. The Par_Out output type allows you to send a low or high pulse signal to one of the 8 parallel port data lines. The IR output type transmits IR commands. IllumiLink also comes with a number of built-in ARexx commands to allow for control from another program. The built-in commands are: Info Gives program info Version Give program version Get_load_name Gives name of last Air file loaded Get_gadget_names Gives list of loaded gadgets Get_left_button Gives state of left mouse button Get_right_button Gives state of right mouse button Front Move AirWindow to front Back Move AirWindow to back Iconify Iconify AirWindow Deiconify De-iconify AirWindow Togiconify Toggles icon state of AirWindow Load_iff Load new IFF brush for AirWindow Load_air Load new AirWindow Save_air Save current AirWindow Exit Quit the Air program Link Link an input type to an output type Output Activate an output type Link_out Activate entry in link list Link_clear_all Clear all links Error_box_on Open requestor on errors Error_box_off Don't open requestor on errors Get_link_count Gives number of links in list Set_menu Set text for a User Menu The only difference between IllumiLink and AirLink is that the hardware for IllumiLink contains a phone jack for attaching a cordless telephone, and an input jack for a tone generator. The phone jack doesn't allow you too attach a phone and then call your system. The phone isn't attached to the phone lines in any way. You attach a cordless phone, and then use the remote handset to send commands just by hitting the buttons. One application for this (I got this from the manual, but I think it sounds great) is to stand at a podium and use a a telephone handset to control your Amiga which is running AmigaVision which controls a laser disk (or VCR - but who uses those any more :-)). DOCUMENTATION The IllumiLink package comes with a 72 page printed manual for AirLink and another smaller manual for IllumiLink. The binding quality (36 pages stapled in the middle and folded) isn't great, but that isn't something I worry too much about, so it's never been a problem for me. I think the manual is fairly good - I've been able to find out how to do just about everything I want. I don't think the manual is written for beginning computer users. You should know something about the Amiga (how to use the mouse, menus, windows, etc.) before you try using IllumiLink, but I think that applies to most applications. There is a section that tells how to make an IR transmitter that attaches to the parallel port or mouse port. and how to create IR transmitters attached to phone jacks. I've tried making both the parallel port transmitter and the extra transmitter with a phone jack and both are fairly easy to do. There is a small section at the end of the manual that gives ideas on how to use IllumiLink for MIDI work, multimedia, and video frame recording. LIKES AND DISLIKES Likes I'm really impressed by what all this product seems to be able to do. All I've done with it is control IR devices, so can't really comment on anything else, but it looks impressive. One of the projects I'm currently working on is setting up a music database using SuperBase. I want to have a database of my CD 6 packs, and use it to program the CD player just by clicking on the songs in the order I want to hear them. Dislikes If you're a perfectionist, it's kind of a pain defining the gadgets on an AirWindow so they sit exactly on the the buttons and cover the entire button. This may be a bug, but I haven't called Geodesic to find out for sure; I haven't been able to figure out how to make an AirWindow open anywhere except with its upper left corner in the upper-left corner of the screen. I'm sure it has something to do with not being able to snapshot the window, but I haven't spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. The machine locks up for a short amount of time when it is sending an IR command. The time is very short (usually about 300ms according to the manual). The doc states that this will happen when sending the IR output to anything but the audio port, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. There's no feedback. This isn't a limitation of IllumiLink, but of IR in general. When you use an IR control (either IllumiLink, a universal, or what comes with the device), you can't tell whether the device received the IR command or not - unless you're looking at it, or you can hear it, or something like that. This isn't a problem unless the device is in some other room where you can't see it. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS I haven't seen any similar products. BUGS I did find a bug when sending IR commands to the parallel port that are repeating commands (like the volume control - you can hold it down, and it keeps sending). They didn't work consistently. I called Geodesic about it and they were very receptive. The guy I talked to suggested that it might be a bug, and to try turning off the repeat flag for that gadget. That fixed the inconsistency, but I can't hold down my volume control button any more. I called him back to let him know, and he said they would try to get it fixed. I called again, and he said the problem was fixed, but I haven't had a chance to download the new version yet. (Actually, the work-around works well enough that I haven't cared enough to get it.) VENDOR SUPPORT Geodesic has a BBS where you can download the newest version of the software and download/upload AirWindows for different devices. I've tried calling the BBS a few times in the last year, but have gotten connected only once. The last few times, all I've gotten is their FAX machine. I called the support line to ask about it, and the support person said they've been having problems with BBS software (PD version), and he is looking for something else. He said the BBS should be up in November. I've called Geodesic a couple of times (three times about the bug above, and once about their Audio AIR Buffer product), and they have been very nice. The person I've talked to has told me that they are working on a new version of the software and hardware, but he hasn't said when it would be ready (naturally, I forgot to ask). I am not associated with Geodesic in any way except as a satisfied customer. WARRANTY None that I know of. CONCLUSIONS I really love stuff like this, so I think this product is the best thing I've got for my Amiga. The potential for what you can do with it is amazing. I'd give this 5 stars out of 5. I don't really see how you can go wrong with this (if you have any IR devices). It costs about as much as a good game or three and is at least as much fun to play with. Plus, you can get a lot more use out of this. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1993 Kevin Messick. All rights reserved. --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews