Old Computer Challenge 2026 Day 1 - Some Theory

Yesterday I announced that I'm planning to build a USB-IR receiver for my media centre. Let's look in a bit more detail at what I'm trying to do here. I have three components: An infrared receiver An Arduino A remote Infrared receiver, Arduino clone, Apple remote I want to connect the infrared receiver to the Arduino so that the Arduino can receive commands I send from the remote, convert it to something the computer can easily understand (maybe by acting as a keyboard and sending keycodes) and pass it on to the computer (media centre) via USB. The remote This is just a basic Apple remote I had lying around. I think it came with the white Unibody Macbooks around 20 years ago, and some other devices as well. Mine I think came with a docking station for an iPod, with which it also works. Once a key is pressed on an infrared remote, it rapidly pulses an infrared LED at a frequency of usually 38kHz (other frequencies in the range of 30kHz to 56kHz can be used, too) and sends out a few…