Apologies if this forum isn't suited for this sort of question, but as there are people who routinely crack open Palms to reverse-engineer them in here, I was thinking that there'd be a few people who can help me here :D

I got bored and having found an old toy remote control car and charged up my TX again, I want to combine the two into a simple robot that I can control by wifi :D

I think I can deal with it really easily if I can get hold of a circuit for controlling motors via serial communication, or even directly by the Palm (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm throwing myself in the deep end here, not knowing that much about integrated circuits/serial comms etc.).

Looking around the 'net, apparently the TX connector can do serial communication without need for conversion, and one shop is selling palm-to-rs232 connectors, but I don't feel like shelling out 60 bucks for it :P

But yeah. I've got the pinout of the connector, can I send analogue signals from SPKR_L and SPKR_R (I'm assuming these are analogue audio outs) straight to the two motors of the toy car (steering motor and motor for going backwards/forwards), using a simple transistor circuit (at least I'm not dumb enough to think that the serial will supply me with 9v of power :P) to switch 'em on, or will I need to use a serial control board to control the motors?

Also, how easy is it to directly control the pins via the linux kernel, e.g. are they GPIOs I can switch on and off with ease, hopefully through Python, or is there much more C/driver/kernel-level voodoo needed?

I only got so far with electronics, having done a couple of years of systems and control at school, hence why I probably sound clueless writing this thread - but I want to get my head 'round this sort of thing as I love doing DIY electronics projects :D

Also. If this thread is unsuitable for HnD, is there a better forum I can go to ask this type o' thing? Most of my questions revolve more around the Palm hardware & the angstrom kernel; if I need help with anything else I can get my friend who'se much better with electronics than I involved.