After re-reading an old readme & history file bundled with a different release of Launch manager (the one available for the Aspire 1690 - same version as the 5020 version, but this EXL806WW.BLD.txt file is missing from the 5020 release), I finally figured out that:
1) It is actually possible to auto detect hardware on older Acer laptops
2) That I had originally misread this file, and that this can be done via ACPI-WMI
So, after ordering myself a firewire (aka ieee1394) cable, I’ve been able to play about with remote kernel debugging in Windows (unfortunately, forcing ACPI into step-by-step mode isn’t useful on a single machine, as it completely locks the machine and you need a remote one to force Windows to go to the next step. And the Windows kernel debugger can only do a remote connection via serial or firewire).
The result is that:
1) I can detect bluetooth on my Aspire 5020
2) I can take a good guess at how wireless detection works
3) I’m not sure on the Mail LED detection, but I do have some ideas.
Hopefully, this should be portable to the other older AMW0 type 1 laptops (and, fingers crossed, the non Acer laptops that also fall into this category). (In theory, based on Wistron’s comments in the driver, this method may well be portable to acerhk and wistron-btns, in the sense that the WMI interface on these laptops is just a front end for the old BIOS calls).
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