Palm IIIxe -- not receiving wake-up signal

My Palm syncs just fine if I invoke the sync from the HotSync
application on the Palm.

But it doesn't respond even the tiniest bit to the hotsync button on
the cradle. And it doesn't respond to my Palm Portable Keyboard at
all.

It makes me think that when the external devices are supposed to short
across the two pins to wake up the Palm, somehow the Palm isn't
recognizing the signal. Can anyone suggest how to recover from this?

By the way, what are the two pins that get shorted? I've fooled
around testing continuity, and I thought maybe pins 2 and 7 from the
cradle, but the keyboard doesn't seem to correspond.

Thanks

----------------

Backstory -- I'd had a devil of a time syncing lately -- connection
continually being dropped unless I held the Palm forcibly pressed down
upon the cradle. But at least the cradle sync button worked to
trigger the sync. Then I discovered that the keyboard was either
being ignored or triggering a hotsync attempt. I then cleaned the
contacts on the Palm (eraser didn't seem to help, so I used a little
toothpaste and got it visibly cleaner), resulting in the current state
where the hotsync connection can maintain itself nicely without me
applying physical force, but it can only be invoked by software, not
hardware.

dekUN@optonline.net (DEK) wrote in news:8108b518.0407311413.679c7383
@posting.google.com:

> It makes me think that when the external devices are supposed to short
> across the two pins to wake up the Palm, somehow the Palm isn't
> recognizing the signal. Can anyone suggest how to recover from this?

Clean the contacts of the Palm and the cradle with a pencil eraser. Be very
careful of the cradle pins, because they're fragile. You need to get that
toothpaste off there. Toothpaste is fine for cleaning teeth, but not very
good for cleaning electronics.

> By the way, what are the two pins that get shorted? I've fooled
> around testing continuity, and I thought maybe pins 2 and 7 from the
> cradle, but the keyboard doesn't seem to correspond.

The hotsync button shorts pins 5 & 9. The complete pinout diagram is at
http://tinyurl.com/3t9u9

--
Regards,

Stan

Stan Gosnell <fakename@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message news:<Xns9537BCFD4126Cstanghalpc@204.52.135.40>...
> dekUN@optonline.net (DEK) wrote in news:8108b518.0407311413.679c7383
> @posting.google.com:
>
> > It makes me think that when the external devices are supposed to short
> > across the two pins to wake up the Palm, somehow the Palm isn't
> > recognizing the signal. Can anyone suggest how to recover from this?
>
> Clean the contacts of the Palm and the cradle with a pencil eraser. Be very
> careful of the cradle pins, because they're fragile. You need to get that
> toothpaste off there. Toothpaste is fine for cleaning teeth, but not very
> good for cleaning electronics.
>
> > By the way, what are the two pins that get shorted? I've fooled
> > around testing continuity, and I thought maybe pins 2 and 7 from the
> > cradle, but the keyboard doesn't seem to correspond.
>
> The hotsync button shorts pins 5 & 9. The complete pinout diagram is at
> http://tinyurl.com/3t9u9

That's a 16-pin diagram, and I have a 10-pin connection. I guess I
should be looking instead at
http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/hardware/palmhardware/electrical_interface(10-pin)connections.pdf,
which seems to confirm pins 2 and 7 for my case (as was indicated by
continuity testing with and without the cradle button).

Should I conclude that these two pins are never involved in data
transfer? So even though my syncs are more reliable after some
cleaning, the short-circuit pins 2 and 7 could still be dirty?

What about the keyboard? Shouldn't I be able to find continuity
between its pins 2 and 7 if it uses the same signal to wake up the
Palm? So far, I find continuity on the keyboard only among pins 2, 4,
and 10.

Is there any known condition (software or hardware, excluding the
condition of the pin surfaces) that would cause the Palm not to
respond to receiving a short across its pins 2 and 7?

Thanks.

dekUN@optonline.net (DEK) wrote in
news:8108b518.0408010303.11da2d23@posting.google.c om:

> That's a 16-pin diagram, and I have a 10-pin connection. I guess I
> should be looking instead at
> http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/hardw...ical_interface
> (10-pin)connections.pdf, which seems to confirm pins 2 and 7 for my case
> (as was indicated by continuity testing with and without the cradle
> button).

OK, you didn't make it clear that you have an older device.

> Should I conclude that these two pins are never involved in data
> transfer? So even though my syncs are more reliable after some
> cleaning, the short-circuit pins 2 and 7 could still be dirt

The pins used to initiate the hotsync are not used for data at all. Data
goes on 3, 4, 5, & 6. If you used toothpaste on them, they are probably
dirty. The toothpaste will leave a film.

> What about the keyboard? Shouldn't I be able to find continuity
> between its pins 2 and 7 if it uses the same signal to wake up the
> Palm? So far, I find continuity on the keyboard only among pins 2, 4,
> and 10.

No, there should be no continuity there. The pins used to initiate the
hotsync are only momentarily shorted to initiate the hotsync. You don't
want to start a hotsync when the keyboard is connected.

> Is there any known condition (software or hardware, excluding the
> condition of the pin surfaces) that would cause the Palm not to
> respond to receiving a short across its pins 2 and 7?

The response you're looking for comes from the PC, not the Palm. The PC
has no idea the Palm is connected until the hotsync pins are shorted. When
it gets this signal, then the hotsync starts.

At least that's my understanding.

--
Regards,

Stan