Hi there,

I am passionate for vintage electronics and also have a large DVD collection, so I got myself a Sony CX-777ES changer. Nice unit. but as most of you know, horrible to unusable interface.

So I got this NOS Escient SE-D1 unit off ebay with the idea to use it to control my DVD changer. Yes, I was aware that Escient filed for bankruptcy, but thought I wouldn't care about the disc identification not working anymore, as the interface alone would be a big improvement.

Unfortunately, after hooking it up to the Internet, I found out that it wants to call home to register itself (serial number, blah blah) and of course there is nobody home anymore, the servers have been decommissioned.

Now, I understand this is a vintage unit, but I wonder what all the people which still owns an Escient unit thinks about they being stranded by such an event, especially considering that these were very expensive units.

Back to my problem, I wonder if there's a way to skip the damn "call home and register the unit" procedure? As if I don't, every time it reboots it will go into quick setup mode - pretty annoying, makes it unusable...

Thank you in advance, any hint is appreciated!

Rick

As I recall there was no way to get past the escient phoning home. I used to have one that somehow "lost" its registration so it would no longer phone home. The escient service center wanted $275 plus freight to fix the corrupt line of code. (and I used to be a dealer of escient!!)

If it were me I would copy all those discs to a hard drive (nas or server) and play them with a KODI or PLEX setup.

QNAP makes NAS drives that have KODI built in with HDMI outputs.

Much better than using an old clunky DVD Changer.

Well at least he has 2 new door stops!

Thank you for your reply.
I know, I'm old dog but I really want to keep my DVD collection, and the DVD changer :-)
I told you, I'm passionate for vintage electronics... I also still own and use a reel to reel tape recorder, a CD jukebox (from NSM), a Nakamichi Dragon tape deck, and other similar stuff...

Re. the Escient, I have read on other forums that there is an "hidden" service menu, do you know how to access it using the remote? Should be a key sequence and then a password...

Maybe there is something useful in there.

I also have seen that the unit runs the VxWorks operating system and there is a telnet login available (over the network), but it asks for login and password. I am an IT guy and I am pretty sure I could circumvent the phone home thing if I were able to access the operating system.

Thanks again
Rick

Having vintage electronics is fine, great even. But like anything vintage, it all depends on what it is.
Having an old Ferrari 250 GT California Spider = priceless
Having an old AMC Gremlin = "have you collected your money from the scrapyard yet?"

Neither one of those pieces you have are special in anyway. They are worthless and just need to be recycled.
I hope you didn't pay a lot of money for them on ebay.

I see stuff on ebay all the time now that is insanely priced. Things that might be worth $1 and people are trying to get $100s. Just crazy.

Brad I do not collect "special" stuff. I collect stuff I like, so your answer is pointless... and when a $3,000 when new unit can now be had NOS for $30 I feel it's worth giving it a try, at least to find out if it was worth $ 3,000 :-)

Rick

I have what's called a beta machine. Used to be $1200, but for you, $40+shipping

Not sure about VxWorks, but I do remember the "golden discs" that you could use to reload the system had Linux like files on it.

God luck hacking that unit!

I don't think vintage is the right word to use for an escient or a DVD changer


But here's something you might could use those two pieces for

[Link: ehow.com]

To me anything not in production anymore classifies as vintage :-)
Your mileage may vary....

That's actually a good idea - to source one of those and have a look inside.
Right now, I am trying to brute force the login. I'll post any progress.
Still, don't think all Escients out there have been scrapped as of today.
They were nice appliances judging by the positive comments I have read on the forums (vintage comments of course....)

Anyone knows where to source one of those golden discs images?
I don't care about the release, just want to have a look inside the OS.

Thanks,

Rick

As Brad implies, when you look at ebay you have to determine whether you are looking at items that are selling for a thousand dollars (priced but never sold, but should be described as for sale instead of selling) and things that have sold for a thousand dollars (that actually were sold). The former category is filled with dreamers who constantly relist their product, thereby creating a false "record" of the value of the piece.

I have a large collection of 78 RPM records, but I have never had a gramophone that used a steel needle and pressed on the record with more than an ounce of pressure. Yes, 28 grams. My direct drive turntable tracks perfectly with about 3 grams!

Use modern equipment to get the data (sound and image) off the disc!

Have you tried contacting Wind River and asking if you could talk to the oldest fart still on staff?

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