Those who know what a Slink-e(
*) is, also know that
Nirvis stopped making this product about a year and a half ago now. With no decent replacement in the market, I have decided to do what any self-respecting DIY hobbyist does... build one myself. I will use a mid-range PIC microcontroller (since low cost Dev tools like PICKit work with them).
I want to gauge interest in this project, from people who are genuinely interested in building one for their own personal use. This will not be, and will never become, a commercial project. If people are persuasive enough it might even become a fully open-source (GPL'd) project. Failing that, I will at least publish schematics and sell pre-programmed PICs (at cost!) to fellow DIY'ers. I am not necessarily soliciting help in the development, but if you are interested, feel free to let me know.
Nirvis has documented the interface to the Slink-e very well. They had to, of course, in order to allow third parties to build applications to make use of the device. This documentation can also be used to build a "black-box" device which essentially behaves as documented, thereby hopefully being compatible with software originally targetted to the Slink-e itself. The details of talking the Control-A1 protocol are available elsewhere on the 'net.
Nirvis also has posted on their website, a complete schematic of the Slinik-e (version 1.0 I believe; the newer versions are not the same). My hardware is completely different; my intention is to mimic the behaviour of the Slink-e, not to clone it. My hardware is also much much simpler (and also less robust) than the Slink-e.
The current status of the project:
- Prototype implements all documented commands/repsonses, although it does not actually perform the requested actions (like transmitting data onto a S-link bus).
- Prototype is recognised by the application "SlinkeServ" which is used by third-party apps to communicate with the Slink-e and for diagnostic tests, etc.
- SlinkeServ currently issues some series of commands (currently unknown) which causes prototype to lock up. I'm working on that...
Once the software interface is more robust, I will connect it up to the Control-A1 (S-link) port transmission/reception code which I have already seperately written. My goal is
only to implement the Control-A1 functionality of the Slink-e, because that is all I need or want. But of course the software interface has to deal with all the other commands for IR ports, Parallel ports, etc.
(
*) A Slink-e is a computer peripheral device which allows bi-directional control of Sony audio and video equipment via Control-A1 and Control-S (S-Link) interfaces, and control of virtually anything else via IR. It also allows control of the computer via IR. The "killer app" for the Slink-e is the control of Sony mega (200 to 400 disc) CD changers.
DIY Slink-e? Interested?
