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.

While I have no use for this I thank you for taking the time to post it.
It's pretty interesting and I'm sure others will try something with it.

My old PC actually has an on-board RS232 socket I wonder how that'd work.

It should work if it's a serial port.

All old PCs have serial ports and they are pretty much all the same. Even if your machine doesn’t have serial the OS still has all the underpinnings so a USB adaptor and it’s drivers are the most you’d need for Windows.

I was thinking of trying to get an old mac but it might be easier to get an old PC. just wished I kept mine since I knew it as it was my family's.

I keep an old laptop around just for that RS232 port.

I have a USB serial adaptor thing I got from Best Buy. I only use it to interface with the Megasquirt (DIY ECU) in my Miata. It worked with my MacBook in both Windows 7 and OSX so I think the 3rd party has this licked now.

At work I may be using a dozen serial devices at once all going into multiple serial hubs and USB adaptors. It’s really quite a common standard to interface industrial stuff where fads are mostly ignored and working standards are used until the last moment. We still run Windows 2000 because why the hell not when nothing could be more obvious than the fact that it works (20 years nearly) in that occupation; running non-networked test gear for example.

I think it would be cool to run this kind of thing on the simplest machine possible, no fans, 286 maybe. Commodore tools would be cool to see, Amiga or earlier even.

It would be cool to create a bluetooth to RS-232 device to plug into the back of the player so your smartphone could function as a Level III remote control. Or to set certain settings on player power up.

Might be doable but I'm not a coder so I wouldn't know.
There's a guy that has made an adapter (OGX360) to run Xbox 360 wireless controllers through original Xbox controller ports. The programming even emulates the Steel Battalion controller (yes, that large expensive mech controller) by using 360 chatpad keys for the special buttons.

The adapter uses Arduino Pro Micro boards.

Original Xbox controller ports are essentially USB but using proprietary plug/socket. I say essentially because there's one extra wire there that USB doesn't need.

Been using this for years at work, to take control of network devices (Cisco, Arista, etc.) on location via the CONSOLE ports.
Just needs a DB9-RJ45 adapter that usually comes with the devices.

https://www.trendnet.com/support/support-detail.asp?prod=265_TU-S9

Julien

Hey this is a really cool project! I recently picked up an LD-V2200 and want to mess with controlling it via serial using a Raspberry Pi 3b. Did you ever make any progress with the library to interact with the player and Linux by chance?

Interesting that this thread should pop up to-day, as it's been my first ever day of LaserDisc serial communication.

I recently acquired an LD-V6100, and, after buying a cheap PCI Serial Port card for my Windows 10 PC, set about linking the two together.

First of all I tried the "DOS test" software which can be found here.

...running in "DOSBOX" (which needed a tiny bit of configuration to see my "COM3" serial port as "COM1", basically this: "serial1=directserial realport:Com3").

It worked but unfortunately it seems that the LD-V6100 (not supported by this software) has a different command set to the LD-V6000 (which is the option I used) so all I managed to do was toggle the on-screen display.

I then had a quick go with Windows Powershell, and cobbled together the appended. But with a lack of documentation, all I found out how to do was to toggle the display and switch the audio channels off and on...

[to use that, change the first two values in the Byte array to the command value you want - so if you want to send "ED", you send 0x45.., 0x44.., 0x0D - as 0x45 is the hex code for the ASCII letter "E" and 0x44 for "D". I think there should have been a way to send it as a single byte but didn't pursue that.]

My ultimate aim was to get some ancient MS-DOS LaserDisc training software working, but didn't get far with that - may continue that in a separate thread sometime...

Nice! I only started looking into this yesterday and found this thread. I need to build my CC-13 cable out of parts I ordered this morning, so hopefully I can start messing with the LD player over serial by next weekend. Thanks for turning me onto that controller software. Initially I was just going to connect to the player using the screen utility under Rapsbian and just start sending it commands as per the CLD-V2400/V2600 programmer's reference guide I found online, but I may give that controller software and DOSBOX a try too. Hopefully its compatible with the LD-V2200.

Let us know if you make any further progress on your end. Good luck!

Yes looks as though it should be okay, the LD-V2200 is on there:

https://manuals.lddb.com/LD_Players/Pioneer/Technical%20Bulletins/

For the cable wiring, CC-04, CC-05, CC12 and CC13 described in PIB #150002 - Pioneer Cable Specifications.

From PIB #150012, PIB #152002 and PIB #152102:

Pioneer LD-V8000 1200 / 4800 / 9600 (default)
Pioneer LD-V6000A 300 / 600 / 1200 / 2400 / 4800 / 9600
Pioneer LD-V6000 1200 / 4800 / 9600
Pioneer CLD-V5000 1200 / 2400 / 4800 (default) / 9600
Pioneer LD-V4400 1200 / 4800 (default) / 9600
Pioneer LD-V4200 1200 / 4800 (default)
Pioneer CLD-V2800 1200 / 2400 / 4800 (default) / 9600
Pioneer CLD-V2600 1200 / 4800 (default)
Pioneer CLD-V2400 1200 / 4800 (default)
Pioneer LD-V2200 1200 / 4800 (default)

If this can be useful.

Julien

I did, but the code here is much more usable:
DomesdayDuplicator PlayerCommunication

So I've had some success! Built the CC-13 cable as per the PIB #150002 document, then connected my LD-V2200 it to a Raspberry Pi 3B running RetroPie (Debian 10) using a DB9 to USB adapter, which was autodetected as /dev/ttyUSB0.

Using the link provided by yaffle2345 above, I downloaded the MSDOS Pioneer Test Program, installed and configured DOSBOX onto the Pi and transferred the executable over to a directory accessible to it. Thankfully, the application fired right up and was able to both connect to and control my LD-V2200! I can do anything from open/close the tray, play, step controls, chapter/frame search, enter/exit test mode, etc...




The application can be used from the Pi using a keyboard and monitor, but I was also able to forward its X session via SSH and launch DOSBOX and remotely control the player from my office laptop as well.



My next goal was to get the DAPHNE laserdisc arcade emulator to interact with the player, but no such luck yet. I installed DAPHNE from RetroPie's repos successfully and configured it to use a physical Pioneer LD player at 4800 baud as per the emulator's wiki, but it refuses to connect to the player. I may try an older version of the emulator to see if that makes a difference.

For now, all I've really managed to do is create the most inconvenient remote control for my LD-V2200 possible, but at least it works!

You're having some success then! Less so for me sadly.

My LD-V6100 doesn't work with the LD-V6000 options on that program. Well, a couple of them (not the display one though) toggle the display but that's about it.

I managed to get some of the old MS-DOS training software working and controlling the player though, and then running another app. to capture the serial port traffic, it showed this when started:


I've found some documentation for the LDV-8000 Level III codes here, so for example "?P" is Player Status Request, and "?U" is a User's Code Request.

I'm not sure if I'm seeing both sides of the communication though - my serial capture app. is just putting everything in the 'write' and nothing in the 'read' box - so is what I'm seeing after the "?U" - "U8009A11A11B10j10k10i11h10g11d" - actually the response (it seems too short, apparently it should be 200 characters), or the PC sending some more stuff? Maybe I don't have that app. configured correctly (this is all rather new to me).

Another part showed:

...which I think means "search to frame 13125, then play as far as frame 14250" - but I could be wrong. But this seems slightly terser syntax than the LD-V8000, which I think would be "13125SE14250PL", or something like that? So "SE" instead of "S", "PL" instead of "P" - so maybe the LD-V8000 Level III isn't the most compatible with the V6100 - or can the commands be shortened in some cases?

Anyway, there is probably more experimenting I can do myself, but if anyone has any insights that might push me forward, they'd be very welcome!

Have been doing a bit more with this - my main object was to see if I could find any 'magic' codes that would do something with the mysterious features of the LD-V6100 (see separate thread) - video input, teletext feature, cartridge port - unfortunately I couldn't find any!

Here is my simple C# code though, which might be useful to someone at some point:


The "Level III" language this player uses seems different both to that on the earlier industrial players (LD-V6000 for example), and on later ones (LD-V4400, CLD-V5000 etc.). Unfortunately I can't find any documentation online for this 'dialect', but I've documented what I could make out using trial and error, which might be of use to someone, one day: