Let me know if this is possible, and if it's fairly easy to do. I could make use of a simple executable (to run on Windows) that could be run from a command line, and could send commands to the player. Would somebody be able to cook something like this up, or is it more complicated than that?

I want to be able to send, for example, a FID of a playlist or tune and have the player start playing it, kind of like Emplode does when you highlight a tune or playlist and hit the play button on the menubar.

Does something like this already exist? If not, could it?

If you have your serial port set up correctly in Device Manager, then simple serial port commands will work straight from the DOS command line.
For example, the command echo n>com1: will go to the next track.

However, the play directly by FID command, as spec'd in the serial commands I just linked, seems to be broken. Anyone care to comment on that?

I'm really looking for a way to mimic Frank's DS functionality, but with a twist. He would have as part of his web index / streaming / downloading section a function that would send play commands to the player, so as you're browsing through your playlists you could from your browser play a tune or a playlist. I want to do the same thing with my app, only my app doesn't run on the player, it runs on a Win2K webserver (with a serial connection to my empeg). My app runs independently of the player most of the time, but for this function (which would obviously only work if you had the Empeg connected) I'd like to be able to send commands (through serial I guess is the only way) to play fids from my browser interface.

Hmmm...I'm feeling a bit wordy tonight. Probably time I sleep.