Operating instructions

Using the sentuser program
Every time the computer reboots, the RTLinux modules should be re-installed, by first
becoming root:
su
and then typing:
cd sentinel_source2
make rtlinux
exit
cd
The sentuser program is used to interface with the Video Sentinel box.
To start the Sentinel control program, type the following:
./sentuser
(This assumes you are using parallel port 0x278 and IRQ 9. If you are using parallel port
0x378 and IRQ 7, you can type instead: ./sentuser2)
After a few seconds you should see a "Command:" prompt where you can issue
commands. If you type "help" you can get a list of available commands.
A typical command sequence to begin detecting meteors would be as follows:
reset This sends a reset pulse to the Sentinel box.
init This loads control code into the Sentinel Video Decoder and
Encoder which takes several seconds to complete.
mask mask.dat This loads the mask file "mask.dat" into the Sentinel box.
timeon 18:30:00 This allows meteor detection to begin at 6:30 PM.
timeoff 06:30:00 This allows meteor detection to end after 6:30 AM.
trigger This initiates meteor detection.
Whenever a meteor is detected, the time is displayed in the terminal window and a
portion of the video is captured to a file. The application sdisplay, which is described
below, can then be used to display the captured video.
If you plan to run two Sentinel boxes with the same PC, you can start ./sentuser in one
terminal window and ./sentuser2 in a second terminal window. Each program runs
more-or-less independently of the other. The only known restriction is that you should
not issue the trigger command in either program until the init command has been issued
in both programs. For example, to be safe, you can issue all your non-trigger sentuser
commands in one window, then issue all your non-trigger sentuser2 commands in the
other window, and finally issue the final trigger commands in both window