Can I connect a CD-i player to a terminal display?
Yes. Every CD-i player from Philips is equiped with a serial port, either as mini-DIN connector at the back of the player, or it can be made available by connecting a port splitter to the input port of CD-i players with only one input port (like CDI 450, CDI 550 and FW380i). On players with only one port for input devices at the front and one at the back, this port at the back can also be used as a serial port. The serial port can be used to hook up all kinds of devices to the CD-i player, like a modem, a touchscreen, a serial printer or a display terminal. You can connect a ‘real’ hardware display terminal like a DEC VT220 or you can use a terminal emulation on the PC (for example Telix or HyperTerm). A detailed description on the layout of the nullmodem cable that should be used can be found at the CD-i Technical Documentation download section on this website. Set the port speed to 9600 baud, 8 databits, 1 stopbits, no parity and the terminal emulaton to standard ANSI.
