Well, the bottom line is, I love to play with old stuff. I am an IT guy, I know many ways to perform what I want using modern technology (yes I do have modern technology at home!) but the Escient Fireball was a great controller and the 777 a great changer and I want give them a try :-)
Re. your direct drive turntable... I have a 45 rpm jukebox with vinyl in it and playing those 45's as mp3 is not the same thing (not mentionig the fascination of a jukebox changing records). It would also not be the same to play them on my Technics 1200 (yes yes vintage technology again!!)

Back to the topic I spent a couple nights on the Escient. They tried to make it secure but were not very successful. I have exploited the webserver in 10 minutes to get access to the flash and am able to read any files. I have found config files with a lot of interesting remote codes, I am going to test them now :-)

Oh, for those who get one of these with password set by previous owner... the password can be shown by visiting an hidden web page....

Using Linux (my box has IP address 192.168.166.250 assigned):

$ wget --quiet --output-document=/dev/stdout --header="Cookie: PHPSESSID=put-here-anything-you-like" [Link: 192.168.166.250]
var params = {};
params.mode = 'guide';
params.media='movies';

var info = {eeprom:{},features:{}, boxdata:{}};
info.eeprom['EI_SERIALNUMBER'] = 'C078-5906.8-00405';
info.eeprom['EI_MACADDRESS'] = '00:30:60:81:35:76';
info.eeprom['EI_PRODUCTNAME'] = 'FireBall-SED';
info.eeprom['EI_PRODUCTREV'] = 'A';
info.eeprom['EI_OEMNAME'] = 'Escient';
info.eeprom['EI_TESTTYPE'] = 'PROD';
info.eeprom['EI_ENCRYPTIONUSED'] = 'true';
info.eeprom['EI_BOOTORDER'] = '6.0.1/app.lck';
info.eeprom['EI_BOOTDEVICE'] = '6.0.1/app.lck';
info.eeprom['EI_IPADDRESS'] = '192.168.1.2';
info.eeprom['EI_HOSTADDRESS'] = '172.16.13.1';
info.eeprom['EI_GATEWAYADDRESS'] = '192.168.1.1';
info.eeprom['EI_USERNAME'] = 'demo';
info.eeprom['EI_PASSWORD'] = 'demo';
info.eeprom['EI_LANGUAGE'] = 'en';
info.eeprom['EI_TEMPPARTITION'] = '6.8.1';
info.eeprom['EI_ACTIVEPARTITION'] = '6.8.1';
info.eeprom['EI_UPDATEPARTITION'] = '6.0.1';
info.eeprom['EI_READONLYPARTITION'] = '6.0.1';
info.eeprom['EI_ACTIVESTATICPARTITION'] = '6.0.1';
info.features['movies'] = '1';
info.features['music'] = '1';
info.features['radio'] = '0';
info.features['iradio'] = '1';
info.features['music.extended.views'] = '0';
info.features['music.record'] = '0';
info.features['default.media'] = 'movies';
info.features['frontPanelDrive'] = '0';
info.features['canAttachChangers'] = '1';
info.features['hasLocalDigitalMusic'] = '0';
info.features['flashBasedFilesystem'] = '1';
info.features['canGatherRemoteMedia'] = '1';
info.features['hasInternalModem'] = '0';
info.features['canActAsServer'] = '0';
info.features['surroundModeCapable'] = '1';
info.features['flacSupport'] = '0';
info.features['externalControl'] = '1';
info.features['recordFromExternal'] = '0';
info.features['touchScreen'] = '1';
info.features['elantouchScreen'] = '1';
info.features['othertouchScreen'] = '0';
info.features['mainReceiptsFile'] = '/receipts/SED.prp';
info.features['multipleDigitalInputs'] = '0';
info.features['multiZoneClient'] = '0';
info.features['multiLanguageSupport'] = '0';
info.features['iPodDock'] = '0';
info.features['groupsEnabled'] = '1';
info.features['deleteMusicDisabled'] = '0';
info.features['musicAllowLocalContentEdit'] = '1';
info.features['os'] = 'unknown';
info.features['arch'] = 'unknown';
info.features['browser'] = 'Wget';
info.features['browser_ver'] = '1.16.3';
info.features['browser_subver'] = 'unknown';
info.features['browser_sup'] = 'unknown';
info.features['lang'] = 'unknown';
info.features['encryption'] = 'unknown';
info.features['agentstring'] = 'Wget/1.16.3 (darwin12.5.0)';
info.features['http_lang'] = '';
info.features['remote_ip'] = '192.168.2.13';
info.features['render_eng'] = 'Wget';
info.features['render_eng_ver'] = '1.16.3';
info.features['moz_release'] = 'unknown';
info.features['os_ver'] = 'unknown';
info.features['os_vendor'] = 'unknown';
info.features['sub_lang'] = 'unknown';
info.features['moz_extra_ver'] = 'Array';
info.features['moz_extra_ver1'] = 'Array';
info.features['moz_extra_ver2'] = 'Array';
info.features['moz_extra_ver3'] = 'Array';
info.features['moz_extra_ver4'] = 'Array';
info.features['moz_rv'] = 'Array';
info.features['chkvers'] = 'Array';
info.features['luser_agent0'] = 'Array';
info.features['luser_agent1'] = 'Array';
info.features['luser_agent2'] = 'Array';
info.features['testwarn'] = '';
info.features['remoteMixServer'] = '';
info.features['remoteDoesMovies'] = '0';
info.features['remoteServesPhysicalContent'] = '';
window.state.config = {
'css-base-color':'#3F9D38',
'product-oem-name':'Escient',
'product-model-name':'FireBall',
'product-shortmodel-name':'FireBall',
'product-longmodel-name':'FireBall server',
'mp-product-name':'FireBall-MP',
'supports-mp':'true',
'remote-control-prefix':'FB',
'show-movies-button':'true',
'show-volume-controls':'true'
};
info.boxdata.webPassword = 'Fireball';
info.boxdata.friendlyName = 'Fireball';
info.boxdata.friendlyName = 'Fireball';
info.boxdata.ipAddress = '192.168.166.250';
info.boxdata.ipAddress = '192.168.166.250';
info.boxdata.setupPassword = '';
info.boxdata.setupPassword = '';
state.jukebox_mode = false;
state.view_data = {
'simple-music':['artist', 'covers'],
'radio':['titles'],
'movies':['titles', 'covers']
};
state.changers = {};
window.handle_info(info);
window.switch_page(params);


Now let's go playing with all those secret codes, I will post progress.

Rick