Gilderfluke&Co old Smart Brick Manual - Manual (Page 137)

- SONY LaserDisk Commands -
The Sony LaserDisk players all share a more or less common command format. A full description of
the commands can be found in the technical publications available from Sony or your Sony dealer. You
should confirm the the usage of these commands for the specific player you are using.
LaserDisks used with the Standard Smart Brick Brain must be recorded in the CAV format. This allows
up to 1/2 hour per side. The Rack Smart Brick Brain supports both CAV and CLV format disks. CLV disks
can hold up to 1 hour per side. Not all players will support the commands needed for using CLV disks in
an animation control system. The player must be able to position the disk to a frame (and pause on that
frame if it is to be used in a multiple LaserDisk installation). Many Sony players can only position to a
ÔchapterÕ when playing CLV disks. They can not be used with CLV disks.
The LaserDisk player must be configured for 9600 baud, 8 bit data, and 1 stop bit (4800 baud can
also work in some applications). Other data rates can be used, but lower baud rates canÕt get the data
across fast enough for the Brick Brain while a show is running. Whatever the data rate used, you must set
the Brick Brain, LaserDisk player, and the terminal or computer you are using to configure the system to
the same speed. If parity is used, then you need to set the data word length to 7 bits, and the parity to
ÔoddÕ. If parity is used, then you must also set the Brick Brain to recognize ÔoddÕ parity as well.
Connections are made as follows:
Sony LaserDisk
DB-25 SIGNAL SIGNAL FROM/TO BRICK BRAIN
2 DATA OUT - serial data in to Brick Brain (GREEN)
3 DATA IN - serial data out from Brick Brain (BLACK)
7 GROUND signal ground (BLUE or WHITE)
4 to 5 RTS/CTS connect these two lines
6 to 20 DSR/DTR connect these two lines
The electrical output from PC¥MACs is at RS-422 voltage levels rather than the RS-232 that these
LaserDisk players really want to see. If this causes a problem, or it the wire runs between PC¥MACs and
the LaserDisk player are long, then you may want to add a RS-232 to RS-422 converter to the LaserDisk
player.
In general, you send a command to the LaserDisk player as a single ASCII character. The LaserDisk
player will then respond that it has received the command with a ÔACKÕ (0A). When it has completed the
task it will sometimes respond with a ÔCOMPLETION CODEÕ (01 usually). Each command must be transmit-
ted one at a time, after which you must wait for a return code(s) before you can send any additional
commands.
The majority of commands which you might need to use are all pretty simple ones. The one compli-
cated ÔsearchÕ command is handled transparently to you when you insert a LaserSearch (01) character
in the string being sent to the LaserDisk player (the Brick Brain must be told it is running a Sony player in
the configuration screen). This string only performs a search for the starting frame of the show on the
LaserDisk player. For this reason it is normally followed by a ÔF-PLAYÕ (3A) command in the same string.
A typical start string for a LaserDisk show is:
LaserSearch F-PLAY <ACK> end-o-string
Translated into HEX ASCII, this string becomes (this is what you would enter):
01 3A 8A 00
and it would be displayed on the String Setup Menu as:
01 3A (0A) 00
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