I don't want to throw cold water on people's cool ideas, but
everyone needs to realize that IrDA is more than just a simple IR
modem. There is a specific comm protocol involved. The protocol
takes about 6 to 8 Kbytes when coded in assembler. It also requires
some reasonable sized buffers (several hundred bytes). It doesn't
sound to me like this is going to be very appealing on a PIC with
max 4K instructions.

Of course you could use IrDA hardware without the software for your
own projects, but the cool thing about IrDA is inter-operation of
different devices. For that you need the protocols.

Dave

---
 David Boulton                    | knowledge is just a polite
 boulton@netcom.com               | term for dead,
 Peregrine Associates             | but not buried imagination.
 POB 1385 Redwood City, CA 94064  |           -- e.e. cummings