I recently acquired two industrial players and I've built a cable to talk to them. I thought I would document the process here:
1. Buy a male DB15 connector and a female DB9 connector.
From DB15 to DB9 connect:
- GND-GND
- TXD-RXD
- RXD-TXD
- DTR-CTS,CD,DTR,DSR
Pioneer sold this as Pioneer Cable # CC-13. PacParts still has at least some variant of this available for order, but it is of course quadruple the cost of making one.
2. Buy USB to RS-232C converter. I believe I purchased mine at RadioShack long ago. Mine was made by Prolific.
3. If you don't have Linux running somewhere, install it on VirtualBox. I used Debian 9. After the OS is done installing, go to Devices -> USB and select your USB/serial converter.
4. Ensure your player is set to 4800 baud. On most players (all?) this is controlled by dip switch two on the back. It should be off for 4800 (up position).
5.
ls /dev should show ttyUSB0. You can begin communication with stty. For example
stty 4800 < /dev/ttyUSB0; echo -e "OP\r" > /dev/ttyUSB0 should open the door.
6. If you want something a little more robust, install minicom. Start with minicom -s and go to device (A) and set to /dev/ttyUSB0. Go to serial port setup (E) and change speed to 4800. Disable hardware flow control. Save setup as dfl.
I'm currently writing a library to make it easier to interact with these players. Controlling these players through software is pretty cool and can be useful. For example, it is possible to disable repeat play which is pretty annoying on these players, set the player into test mode, change background from blue to black, play at half speed, get your player's hardware revision number, etc.
Next up is to buy the barcode software Pioneer made to see if barcodes can be created from the more useful commands.