Philips CD-i Player Null-Modem Cable for Data Backup and Restore

Before messing with the Timekeeper chip or exchanging the battery, it is very important to back up game saves you don’t want to lose from the NVRAM. With a null-modem cable hooked up to a PC, there are two options to communicate with the CD-i player:

To build a cable, we need a standard serial extension cable and a male 8-pin Mini-DIN connector. Remove the male D-Sub connector and keep it for later (we will need it for the Atari Jaguar mouse adapter).

In the CD-i Link archive are instructions on how to build a null-modem cable with three wires. Unfortunately, it didn’t work with my setup, and I had to rebuild it later with six wires according to the original specifications.

Mini-DIN connector   Null-Modem Cable

This is the CD-i’nterlink disc menu (it’s also called CD-interlink or CD-Interlink within the program). With it, you can list, view and delete files in the NVRAM. When connected to a PC, you can send/receive them via the X- and Z-Modem protocols or start the host mode (mouse cursor):

CD-i'nterlink

The host mode allows a PC terminal program to manipulate the NVRAM files. This is how it looks in Windows Hyper Terminal:

Hyper Terminal CD-i'nterlink Host

Read more about using CD-i Link in this article. Continue with CD-interlink in this article.

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