You can do tpdd to a pc or mac or pi etc for free. Just need a usb-serial adapter and serial cable.
There is also an initial arduino implimentation that works on at least a few boards that have sd readers and usb interfaces already built-in, if you're up for that. Jimmy Petit wrote it and I have gotten it working on both Teensy and Adafruit Feather boards where you don't need anything else besides the board, an rs232-ttl module, and power. The Adafruit even has a lipo charger/manager and standard lipo connector already built in, so "power" means just plug in a lipo, and it's automatically charged by the same usb port used for programming. So there is no circuit designing, just connecting a couple legos to each other. I too collect laserdiscs and have a few players, though I don't think any of mine have rs232 interfaces. I have played around with the rs232 interfaces on a few different video processors. Especially a Faroudja where I don't have the remote and neither does Logitec harmony have the codes for it. I have a stack of strange discs that were obviously part of some internal teaching system at some company (I forget who it was). You can physically play the discs in a normal player, but they are really meant to be played in some kind of special rig that shows only 1/2 of the video and plays only one channel of audio at a time, and jumps to specific frames, presumably in response to user input, or I guess it could have been scripted. -- bkw On Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 11:27 AM Scott Lawrence <yor...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi all. > > So I'm working on a project; a BASIC program that talks at 4800 baud to a > LaserDisc player. The commands are sent as ascii text, with a carriage > return at the end, and responses are similarly a text string terminating in > a CR. > > On my Tandy 200, I'm able to configure the port in TERM via: > STAT 78N1DNI > > And then i can type out commands and the player works and responds with > the correct responses... so I know the serial line is working in both > directions as designed. > > In BASIC, i know i need to open the connection for INPUT and OUTPUT so > that I can write stuff and read back the responses. The following code > works to send out the commands, but it gets errors no matter what I try for > reading in the response > > 10 OPEN "COM:78N1DNI" FOR OUTPUT AS 1 > 20 ON COM GOSUB 100 > 30 COM ON > 40 REM Send seek to frame 1000 > 50 PRINT #1, "FR1000SE" > 60 REM when the player gets there, it responds "R<CR>" via serial > 70 GOTO 70 > 100 REM Got serial response > 110 A$=INPUT #1 > 120 PRINT "Got ", A$ > 130 RETURN > > I looked around in a few online T books, but couldn't really find anything > that could help me out on this one, and I'm feeling pretty stupid that me, > a web applications and embedded systems engineer can't figure out a BASIC > program.... It's been YEARS since I messed around with BASIC, and even then > I never really did much with opening files... > > sidenote, "ON COM GOSUB <xxx>" ?!?! That's an awesome feature! I love > that we can have interrupt-driven serial in BASIC! > > Side-sidenote; I also don't really have a good solution yet for saving and > restoring the files but i'll probably just do serial port dumps or > somesuch. ;D I know i can buy NADS or REX or something, for file offloading > but this is a short-term project for Maker Faire next month, and I don't > have the cash to drop on fancy stuff right now. I'll probably just throw > together a serial-terminal based SD card shell using a spare arduino or > something... Although I'd gladly trade my Booster Pak which i never > really got working for one of those... ;D > > -s > > -- > Scott Lawrence > yor...@gmail.com >