2014 |
E2 | DGPC |
This project was to make an operating system in Garry's Mod with Wiremod's E2 and EGP, if you don't know what that is:
- E2 is a chip that you can write programs to, like an Arduino chip for GMod. - EGP is a screen that draws primitive objects such as Boxes, Text, ect. - This can only be controlled by E2. Anyway, I made 3 versions of this project, each time I got better at making it. |
The first version I made had keyboard input, power button and shutdown, a login screen where you'd set a password, no accounts, you'd get to the desktop and there was nothing else to do.
The second version, I got a lot further. Everything the first one had but now it had desktop gadgets, triple monitor display, windows, cursor, router and good old revived Pong. - And you could play together with multiple computers connected with the router. The only problem was that everything was written on the one chip, the one file! 1920 lines of code to search through, finding where to write the next. It was a nightmare to navigate. So as soon as I found out about the #include directive, which allowed you to split up your E2s into multiple files... I got straight to work on DGPC3 and I had to start fresh. While I did copy a lot of the old systems over, every bit of it had to be to a high standard to make it as easy as possible to write new programs. |
So I'll just show screenshots of what you'd do with the PC besides making new programs:
Well first you'd have all the components connected to the computer and then hit the power button.
Well first you'd have all the components connected to the computer and then hit the power button.
You'd create an account and password then login.
The desktop obviously has a task bar and start menu. We'll checkout the control panel first:
- Networking to connect with other DGPCs
- Gadgets for showing the CPU percentage and the current game time.
- User management to create/remove users
- Personalize desktop and colours
- All settings are saved correctly to the user account.
- Networking to connect with other DGPCs
- Gadgets for showing the CPU percentage and the current game time.
- User management to create/remove users
- Personalize desktop and colours
- All settings are saved correctly to the user account.
Now for the programs, once again rewriting Pong, also mostly copying Minesweeper and adding new features. Both programs look much nicer, have better controls and react much faster.
There's also a new program called the Definer, I'll get to that after I show the screens from the other two.
First Pong; now with a sleek background, difficulty settings and a table of scores.
There's also a new program called the Definer, I'll get to that after I show the screens from the other two.
First Pong; now with a sleek background, difficulty settings and a table of scores.
Minesweeper; now with difficulty settings, timed mode, table of scores and a faster responding interface.
The Definer; a late addition to the small list of programs. You would type a word in the box and it would fetch HTTP data from a dictionary site and display it on screen.
An example:
An example:
That's all folks! I didn't get around to releasing this and making tutorials on how to make programs, utilize the elements such as loading bars, text boxes, ect.
But I learnt heaps through the making of this project, only to know I can make better things and take an extra step further in the next project.
But I learnt heaps through the making of this project, only to know I can make better things and take an extra step further in the next project.