[jedimasta]

I've no doubt that I'd be saving myself enough time and trouble to justify the cost of just buying one, but I feel like there's got to be a way to reuse one of these IR receivers I've got lying around.

I've got two. The first is the somewhat now-famous Packard Bell Fast Media Remote and receiver. It's served me well in the past, but nothing I have anymore, including my XBMC machine (Dell laptop) includes serial ports with which to plug it in. Otherwise I'd use WINLIRC. I've made attempts to use serial-to-usb converters but all have failed. If someone has been successful with this thing I'm all ears.

The other is the receiver from a Logitech Cordless Freedom keyboard and mouse combo. The receiver itself has a USB plug with two ps2 (keyboard and mouse) plugs. You know, the really old style wireless keyboards? I suppose it would take some kind of hack, but it IS an IR receiver that I can't help but think should be able to work, but it may be too proprietary to function the way I'd like with WINLIRC. So again, if anyone has attempted and succeeded in using this, please to be helping.

Thanks!

[kricker]

I'm afraid your wasting your time on both fronts. You can check out the Evenghost forums or WinLIRC boards for any tips, but I doubt you will find anything useful for such old hardware. I'm pretty sure the logitech adapter is propietary and not meant as a remote control IR receiver.

[GomezAddams]

You'll never get the serial one to work with anything other than a real serial port. They were not really serial devices. They simply presented the raw IR pulses on one of the rs-232 control signals, and the software did "bit-banging" to convert.

[dukey]

You need a real serial port to use the serial plugin in winlirc. Timing is not accurate enough with a USB -> Serial adapater so nothing will really work, even if you do see data coming through.

You can make one of these. It's pretty much the simplest IR receiver ever.
http://winlirc.sourceforge.net/audioreciever.html

I made that one for a few dollars. Supports any remote control

I should mention though, that new motherboards often have serial headers on them, even if they don't have a serial connection on the back.
See:
http://htpc-hell.zxq.net/?p=61