Good day all,

As a Aliens fan and grid owner , I came across this site in search of sentry terminal software but found as everyone else there is no such beast for the grid and some debate if the program on screen was even real or not. I decided to try and write one myself for dos, electronics being a hobby of mine I have done a small amount of programming, but I like learning new things, I did a basic version using turbo pascal on my gridcase 1530 here http://youtu.be/-QSUCo-9G3k as you can see it is not very attractive, but before I spent anymore time on it changing the fonts I tried it on my gridcase 3 ,well it ran so slow it was useless. So I scrapped that plan and went straight for the real deal and began to program it in assembly , being a collector of grids I had a 1139 , but it had no OS so was dead , I reached out on this Board , and with the help of Bug Stomper who supplied me with a OS and also had done all the pixel counting to make bmp fonts and screens . Noble who had some invaluable technical documentation for the compass series ,I believe I can put to rest that the program was indeed real and working in the sentry scenes, So the long wait , years and years buy the age of some of the threads is almost over!!

Here is a few pic's of the work to date ,

Look at those ammo counters go!!
http://youtu.be/bA33TVG5k0c
http://youtu.be/K0oQN1bef7U

Bravo!

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My entry-level prop and costume tutorials: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12751

Quite excellent, well done! Very cool to see

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All right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? Another glorious day in the Corps! A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade! I LOVE the Corps!

Ah, a first look at the other (non Compass) versions!
Great work!
Do you think it would be possible to relocate the screen graphics to match the distance to the top of the screen housing of the Compass? That way it might be possible to copy the frame/housing of the Compass for the Gridcases and get a very close match.

Cheers,
Stefan

Stefan, that is a good idea, but will work best with the plasma screens as the lcd screen is a little different plus the color is bad. I will make the modification for the release version

Outstanding!

Now all we need is a deck of cards.

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Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

Awesome work!


Kevin

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I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me! WHY DIDN'T YOU BELIEVE ME!?!

Well done!

I wrote a version on my Amiga in AMOSPro (which can be run on a PC under emulation), but writing it on the actual thing in assembly is impressive.

You just need some beeps adding now. Does the grid have sound, or were the beeps added later for the film?

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My YouTube Videos

There is a speaker in the screen area, and I can call a beep through DOS , but it is the wrong tone and is 2 slow for the flash routine , and my attemps to get sound using standard in/out ports have failed as the compass does not follow ibm pc compatability , and have been unable to track down any documentation about it, the software like kemit and lotus written for the grid use the dos beep call so that has not helped and using DOS Debug on the compass is slow and painfull, but I have not givin up, It is on my to do list along with adding real motion detection.

Grant

When will this come out for the iPad?

Ipad... Heresy! Just kidding.

I can't say enough how pleased I am that you did this!

There's not many crazy Compass owners here, but there's tons of Gridcase guys.


Glad my random compass+manuals purchase contributed to the effort!

Got some work to do on my 1139 this weekend....

HOLY COW!

I got my 1139 fired up today running your software.

It is amazing!!!!

Very impressive. Well done

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Pvt. Robert E. Davies

69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes

A08/TQ1.0.02129E1

God yes!

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Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

Glad you liked it, now I just need to get the sound figured out...

I just realized the links to the photo's had been changed and were not working, Now fixed

KlyBall

Any luck on the sound?

I see stuff like this, and wish I'd taken programming classes Really awesome!!

The sounds in the film may have been added post production. Is there a db9 serial port on the grid case?

This part might get what you want done:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2220

Arduinos are great at serial actions and control. The above board requires nothing other than loaded sound files and a switch on pins 0 - 10. The board runs on 3.3-5.5V DC.

DB9 supplies 3.3V DC.

Adafruit sells connectors and some parts. The special cables you can find on l-com.com. Micro screws I recommend micro fasteners.com.

I think it would be possible to wire in to a DB9 and control serial switching via software. All you have to do is make a path to ground on one of the 11 pins to trigger a sound to play.

I hope this helps and gives you some productive results on your quandary.

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The impossible takes a while longer and goes over budget too...

I know this is an age old thread but is this dos software available at all? i'm looking for something to run on my Toshiba 3100e that will look close to what we see in the film, without the massive expense of buying a compass Grid 2!

It is linked or contained on this forum. It is a flash based piece. I am having a bitch of a time getting it to work on a raspberry pi 4.

Flash piece is here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3019

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The impossible takes a while longer and goes over budget too...

Anywhere I could download the DOS version for my GridCase?

Little update, anyone knowing where I could find a DOS version?

keep searching on the forum I think there are links, or files in a post somewhere. The software is a visual basic program.

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The impossible takes a while longer and goes over budget too...

try this link:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10162&hilit=sentry+gun+software

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The impossible takes a while longer and goes over budget too...