IrDA Principles and Protocols: The IrDA Library, Vol. 1 [Paperback]

Charles D. Knutson (Author), Jeffrey M. Brown (Author)

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Charles D. Knutson is Director of the Mobile Computing Lab and Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He served as the Chair of the Test and Interoperability Committee of the Infrared Data Association for several years, and is currently a member of the IrDA Architecture Council. Dr. Knutson holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Oregon State University plus B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from BYU. He has held engineering and management positions at corporations including Hewlett-Packard, Novell, Extended Systems, and Counterpoint Systems Foundry. Dr. Knutson is a popular speaker at the annual Embedded Systems Conference. His articles have appeared in Portable Design Magazine, Communication Systems Design, Embedded Systems Programming, Byte, PC Computing, InfoWorld, and other industry and academic publications.

Product Details

• Paperback: 214 pages
• Publisher: MCL Press (May 2004)
• ISBN-10: 0975389203
• ISBN-13: 978-0975389201
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,945,726 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too little too late..., March 11, 2005

By 

Working Engineer (Cape Cod MA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: IrDA Principles and Protocols: The IrDA Library, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

If you expect to have the knowlege you need to program an IrDA stack for your device after reading this book, you are sadly out of luck. Having had many years of difficult experiences with IrDA I was eagerly anticipating this book, but was seriously disappointed. IrDA is a great, inexpensive, relatively secure protocol that should be in many more devices than it is - but sadly this book will do little to change that.

This, the first book on this subject, is more of a lightweight overview than the down and dirty technical treatise that is needed to assist developers who are trying to implement an IrDA stack. IrDA implementation has always been problematic because of the poorly written specifications and idiosyncratic implementations, and while a good book has been needed for a long time, this isn't the book. It just doesn't cover the subject in sufficient detail.

Some background - one should be amazed that for a technology that has been around for almost ten years this is the first book written about it - that is until you realize the people who make money off it have an interest in keeping the technology somewhat inaccessible. Sadly, this approach has hurt the acceptance of IrDA. If you look around you will see that other popular communication/connectivity protocols have an abundance of books written about them - Serial, Parallel, USB, Ethernet, just to name a few; and within these books you have the tools to complete an implementation, including CD's with sample code. You won't find that here; it just doesn't exist for IrDA.

So unfortunately for developers new to IrDA the secrets of implementing IrDA protocols are still safe with the software foundries that comprise the IrDA association. At under 200 pages this book is a true lightweight for this genre. This book needs to bulk up to about twice the page count for it to contain the necessary information to make it truly useful to a working engineer.

Why was I not surprised that the back page of the book advertises the training and consulting services of the author?

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Elaborates IrDA specs but weak on stack details, January 24, 2005

By 

Kevin Swann - See all my reviews
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This review is from: IrDA Principles and Protocols: The IrDA Library, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

I bought this as a S/W engineer implementing an IrDA stack

Not much content is allocated to the inner workings of a IrDA stack.
Excessive content is spent on the IrDA physical layer which, to a large extent, is dictated by commercial IrDA compliant LEDs.

What is missing are message sequence charts and explanations for the typical establishment of a IrLMP/IrTTY connection.

Also, what would be useful is a real stack dump with notes of which fields are changed as the connection is established.

Fine to begin with but after analysing a real stack dump you are quickly taken past what is offered.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Make or Buy :Adding IrDA to your product line, September 30, 2004

By 

Dennis Mcnamara (Syracuse, New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: IrDA Principles and Protocols: The IrDA Library, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

"IrDA Principles and Protocols" by Charles Knutson is the ultimate guide to A) Understanding the background of IRDA B)The architecture of IrDA C)The methodology necssary in building an IrDA stack D) Helps determine if the effort and resources involved, would result in a better ROI by internally developing IrDA, or licensing an IrDA stack.

This easily read text, should be a starting point for anyone who is investigating implementing short range wireless IrDA into a product. The comprehensive nature of the material is well structured and not just an academic exercise. It is written for developers who are investigating real design parameters and decisions. This quick read gives practical guidance and a solid foundation to making development decisions.