Pioneer Laserdisc Player Software

[Randywil]

Trying to get software writen for the Pioneer LD-1000 to work on Pioneer LD-4400. See attach file for details.

[MarcE]

wrong message board. We work on optical lenses not optical DRIVES.

You could wait a long time for answer to that question. If it was one?

[Randywil]

This Laser Disk title that I am try to get working is call

General Ophthalmic Concepts

C.L. Videodisc Learning Modules

So I thought maybe someone elese might have already got this working.

[Randywil]

This software is written specifically for soft and rigid contact lens fitting procedures as a training program for Contact Lens practitioners. But it was designed to run on an old DOS operating system and the laserdisc is very slow and now unreliable. I have a much faster Windows 95 and up Laserdisc player that is compatible, but need some assistance to get the software updated. There was a cross-over program available on the Internet until 2 years ago, but no longer available.

I know that many optiboarders are quit computer-savy and am looking for some assistance. The laserdisc has 50,000 slides on contact lens-related diseases, various training films, 8 learning modules, etc, all labelled and cross-indexed.

[tmorse]

This software is written specifically for soft and rigid contact lens fitting procedures as a training program for Contact Lens practitioners. But it was designed to run on an old DOS operating system and the laserdisc is very slow and now unreliable. I have a much faster Windows 95 and up Laserdisc player that is compatible, but need some assistance to get the software updated. There was a cross-over program available on the Internet until 2 years ago, but no longer available.

Just to explain a bit more, Randy is my employee at BC College of Optics. We purchases a Contact Lens Trining program in 1987, which ran under Windows 2.2 and still does, using a Pioneer LV-1000 LaserDisc player purchased at that time. This CL training program was used by the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo Ontario, for their Optometry program. I had called them to ask about this training program before I purchased it from a company run by Dr. Lowther, OD. Most of the modules were delivered but a few were not, due to some problem with other OD authors.

I still thing these CL training films are excellent today, and I asked our in-house computer guru Randy WIlson to do what is required to make it work in a more modern computer environment, say Windows 95-98 or newer. He has managed to get 90% of it working at these blistering Windows 95 speeds (compared to DOS 2.2) but still has a few issues with the modules. All 52,000 slides can be ‘searched’ at command, so it is 90% working. But the eight (8) 5 1/4" floppy training modules are still not compatible with the 3 1/8" modern floppies, and the very slow DOS 2.2 (8 megahertz) does not properly work with the faster Windows 95-98 speeds.

Many Optiboarders have an excellent working knowledge of computer systems and many are old enough to have experience with older programs, such as DOS 2.2.

I, Ted Morse, Program Director of BC College of Optics and Optiboard menber am looking for assistance in this area. If you cannot help personally, but know of a computer company or provider that can do this type of work, kindly provide me with their contact name. Many thanks.:cheers:

[HarryChiling]

Have you extracted the files from the old media? If so forward them to me and I can see what I can do to get them working.

[DragonLensmanWV]

Just to explain a bit more, Randy is my employee at BC College of Optics. We purchases a Contact Lens Trining program in 1987, which ran under Windows 2.2 and still does, using a Pioneer LV-1000 LaserDisc player purchased at that time. This CL training program was used by the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo Ontario, for their Optometry program. I had called them to ask about this training program before I purchased it from a company run by Dr. Lowther, OD. Most of the modules were delivered but a few were not, due to some problem with other OD authors.

I still thing these CL training films are excellent today, and I asked our in-house computer guru Randy WIlson to do what is required to make it work in a more modern computer environment, say Windows 95-98 or newer. He has managed to get 90% of it working at these blistering Windows 95 speeds (compared to DOS 2.2) but still has a few issues with the modules. All 52,000 slides can be ‘searched’ at command, so it is 90% working. But the eight (8) 5 1/4" floppy training modules are still not compatible with the 3 1/8" modern floppies, and the very slow DOS 2.2 (8 megahertz) does not properly work with the faster Windows 95-98 speeds.

Many Optiboarders have an excellent working knowledge of computer systems and many are old enough to have experience with older programs, such as DOS 2.2.

I, Ted Morse, Program Director of BC College of Optics and Optiboard menber am looking for assistance in this area. If you cannot help personally, but know of a computer company or provider that can do this type of work, kindly provide me with their contact name. Many thanks.:cheers:

Have you tried running them under DOSBox?
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1

[HarryChiling]

Randy your fix might be working in the batch files, but the compiled code may be having issues. I might try to partition a "B:" drive on your computer and placing on it the same contents as the floppy. Sorta like a virtual drive if you will. That way you don't need to apply a patch which may not help the compiled code. From what I can tell the search parameter may be different for this new player, have you tried the "direct controller" option #1 to see if you can directly specify the search parameter 92000[S]. I know you tried it in the format <92000s>, <92000SE>, and <92000S>, but that may be the format that the .lrn files are in not the format that the laserdisc player accepts as a search function. I don't haev teh laser disc or an emulator to see what I get back in return, but I would give that a try.

If you get it working I would also think about maybe porting it over to a Flash director file or a power point in the near future so you could get rid of the old laser disc.

Let me know if that helps.

[wombat]

To tell the truth, you might be better off just to recreate the original setup. There must still be some working LD-1000 compatible decks out there, and they aren't likely to cost you more than $100 or so. It shouldn't be a big deal to get the software to run off a hard disk under DOS; you might even be able to use a flash memory drive (CF with an IDE adapter) since you'll only need a couple of megs.

If that conversion software was available 2 years ago, is it possible it could have been preserved by archive.org? Do you know the website that hosted it?

[Randywil]

Thank you for all your help. By using all of your suggestions I was able to solve the problem.