[comp.lang.pascal] Video Laser Disc Driver

LAAAA43@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be (Peter Arien) (01/29/91)

Ho there,

This is the next step in my quest for video-interaction.

In order to experiment with the setup, I have a Philips
VP 410 Laservision Disc Drive connected to my PC (386SX)
over the RS232. I found a very neat Pascal communication program
in wuarchive.wustl.edu, that makes it possible to send
ASCII commands over the Com1 (RS232) to the video-player.
And it works fine.  (The program is called Comm-TP4 and is
written by Kevin R. Bulgrien.)

Alas, the program is much too big, since I have to call it
from within an other (presentation) program that already
swallows most of my PC's memory.

The question : where do I find a program that does the same
thing and is much (!) smaller. This means : it doesn't have to
have any user-interaction facilities, it just must be able
to send the ascii commands to the laser disc drive over Com1.

Commands like : ,1 (stand by)
                F00001N (goto picture number 1 and start playing)
                ,0 (stop).

I did find a few hints in the Pascal manual, but it refers
to the IBM technical manual, and from there on it gets much to
complicated for me, a Pascal- and PC-beginner.


Any help would very much appreciated.


Peter.
==================================== = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ====
Peter Arien                          =  LAAAA43@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be =
Academic Computing Center            =  LAAAA43@blekul11           =
K.U.Leuven - Belgium                 =  'It was clear as mud ...'  =
==================================== = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ====

CDCKAB%EMUVM1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu ( Karl Brendel) (01/30/91)

In article 91028.164153LAAAA43@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be,
  <LAAAA43@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be> (Peter Arien) wrote:

[...deleted...]

>In order to experiment with the setup, I have a Philips VP 410
>Laservision Disc Drive connected to my PC (386SX) over the RS232. I
>found a very neat Pascal communication program in
>wuarchive.wustl.edu, that makes it possible to send ASCII commands
>over the Com1 (RS232) to the video-player. And it works fine.  (The
>program is called Comm-TP4 and is written by Kevin R. Bulgrien.)

[...deleted...]

>The question : where do I find a program that does the same thing
>and is much (!) smaller. This means : it doesn't have to have any
>user-interaction facilities, it just must be able to send the ascii
>commands to the laser disc drive over Com1.
>
>Commands like : ,1 (stand by)
>                F00001N (goto picture number 1 and start playing)
>                ,0 (stop).

[...deleted...]

Perhaps I'm suggesting an overly simple approach, but have you
tried initializing the com port (via a DOS MODE command (from a
batch file or an EXEC call) or by using the appropriate BIOS call or
some other means), then merely using WriteLn(Com1,',1'), etc.?

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