thanks everyone.

Jeff - I have a pinout guide simllar plus i had to pinout the rj45-db9 adapaters that i have. However, I always get confused if pin1 is on the cable or on the piece of equipment, b/c pin 2 on the cable (male) goes into pin 4 on the denon (female)

Or is it just always as shown? Or are males one way and females another?

Stamp, that is excatly what I did, i just created some buttons and dropped some simple commands on them. I have Vista, so no hyper terminal. I'm using the Crestron provided Denon serial driver through SB. I am going to try a different driver maybe and possible write a couple of my own strings.

As for the "control system" mode, I think that came later, when denon came out wiht their 2-way remote, but I'll check.

So far, still no luck.