Using PDAs as a PC Control Panel?

Chase asks: "Has anyone ever used an old PDA as a control panel for a larger headless system? I was planning on installing a computer in my car to do a variety of things and I happen to have a few old PDAs laying around gathering dust. (HP320LX, HP360LX, PalmPilot Pro). The general idea here is that you could power the PDA from the car and use a null modem cable to create a connection between the PDA and the headless computer. I have a matrix oribital display and compatible number pad, but the PDA touch screen with buttons and back light seems like it would be much cooler."

Comments

It's no big deal to do....

[Rude Turnip]

I ran a BeOS based MP3 jukebox in my office. I hooked up a tiny, old Compaq b&w handheld running WinCE 1.0 via serial port. I ran the handheld's terminal emulator, logged into BeOS through the serial port and controlled the jukebox with a CLI-mode controller for the MP3 player.

If I wanted to get fancy, I could have connected the jukebox and the handheld with a crossover cable, loaded IE for WinCE and ran a webserver-based MP3 controller on BeOS. Then I'd have a nifty, graphical touch screen MP3 controller. This latter solution would be especially sweet if you hook up a 3Com Audrey instead of the Compaq handheld.