Okay, here's the deal. I have this wireless remote control for a 'nix machine (slack 9) and its all set up so when I push the play button on the remote, a command is run (currently it launches an xterm).

My goal is to have this play/pause button work to play/pause mplayer. Currently, I have to use the spacebar for this. However, I need a command that does this so I can play/pause with the remote. How can I do it with a command?

vague idea 1.) since mplayer is in focous, somehow echo out a spacebar key to the keyboard device somehow?

vague idea 2.) something like xmms --pause, for mplayer

Thanks in advance!