Wow, what a fun challenge this has been! While I certainly ran into a number of difficulties, for my first RetroChallenge, I’m pleased to say that I consider my project a relative success. After all, I was able to get my //e talking to my wife’s Sanyo Katana without issue. And I even managed to get it to talk to my Treo, I just couldn’t get the Treo to talk back. ;) I have created a separate project page for this project, complete with more pictures, that I will use to continue the project beyond the challenge. I’ll continue to post updates there, as well. Check out that page for a more detailed summary of the project.

So I ended up proving that the //e could use the bluetooth module to talk to phones supporting the DUN profile without issue, and I received confirmation that it works with other Treos. (just not mine, for some reason) I never managed to determine the exact cause of my Treo’s failures. I do not know if it is a problem that affects all Sprint Treos, or ones with a certain firmware, but it certainly doesn’t affect all Treo’s.

As far as my goal to have a full design prepared for the interface card, I just didn’t get there. Wrestling with the Treo really slowed me down there. Not to mention the fact that my most important prototyping parts that I ordered from ReactiveMicro.com still have not arrived. I suppose it was just bad timing, with KFest going on and all. I have the design mostly done and I posted a pic to the project page.

I definitely had a great time with this project and learned a tremendous amount. While I didn’t get to complete as much of the project this month as I had hoped, my success to this point encourages me to continue the project to its eventual completion in the weeks to come. I also have some additional ideas for features I’d like to add to the design and should have the time now to see about those. So please, stay tuned for more updates.

Hey everybody… I haven’t posted more recently because I have had some pretty major roadblocks. Most of the things I expected to be easy have been anything but. Also, I have been awaiting several prototyping components for the actual Apple II card for weeks now and alas, after having just checked the mail, I know that I won’t even have a few minutes to put the parts together for a quick test today.

Unfortunately, the real problem appears to be my Treo itself. It seems to have some serious objections to communicating with either Bluetooth module I picked up. (Though I have received confirmation that other Treos work fine.) I am awaiting some last minute support from Bluegiga regarding this issue and am hopeful for good news.

The circuit design and board layout are still in early stages, as these other problems have been such a challenge.

I will also be doing a complete writeup/summary of the project later today, and while I am disappointed that some things have been such a challenge, I am also very encouraged that none of these things have proved impossible to overcome. I have confidence that I’ll be able to resolve them soon. As for the competition, I think there are some accomplishments/revelations worthy of note, and will detail those in my later summary.