The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS

[Rymo]

I'm starting a new project I've been wanting to do for a long time now. I'm building a "working" replica of the handheld "Marksmann GPS" unit that Eddie Carr is seen using in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.



The prop is made from a modified Tektronix WFM90 handheld waveform monitor. It is basically a small LCD TV monitor that can be used to test analog video and audio signals. I picked one up on eBay for $30. It should arrive tomorrow. The one I bought does not work, but that doesn't matter. I plan to replace the screen and internals with a Raspberry Pi mini-computer and an LCD touchscreen.



I still need to identify the sun hood that surrounds the screen on the prop. It's not a Tektronix accessory, so it has to be from another source. I've looked at a lot of small LCD sun hoods online, but none of them are an exact match to the one seen on screen.

Also, I've been working on an animation that will play on the screen of my replica. Here's a video clip of what I've come up with so far.

VIDEO OF THE ANIMATION

The video is widescreen because I'm going to try installing a widescreen LCD, and center the LCD so that the middle part of it shows through the 4:3 screen opening on the Tektronix device. This is simply because widescreen LCD panels seem to be easier to find. So, basically, the left and right-hand sides of the widescreen LCD won't be visible. When my WFM90 arrives tomorrow I'll be able to take it apart and get some measurements. Then I'll know how much internal space I have to work with.

 

[Rymo]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS handheld device

I think I'll enlarge some of the smaller font sizes in my animation so that they are more easily read on a 4-inch screen.

 

[davidJurassic]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS handheld device

This is great, love the animation you've created. Looking forward to seeing how this pans out

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[Rymo]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS handheld device

MYSTERY PARTS

The 3 main differences that I can see between the original Tektronix device and the prop is the addition of an antenna, a sun hood, and at least one of the keys on the keypad is different.

ANTENNA MOUNT: Here are some screenshots of the prop along with reference images of the actual Tektronix device. There are 3 BNC connectors and one XLR connector on the top of the device. The prop has an antenna plugged into one of the BNC connectors. But, then there is some additional material angling off to the left-side of the device from the base of the antenna. It looks like whatever it is may be wrapped in black gaffers tape or something.

The original Tektronix unit can accept a video signal input through the BNC connectors, so I'm wondering if they just ran a video feed of the GPS animation into one of the BNC connectors and then used black tape to conceal the video cable running out of the device. This would have been the easiest way to play the GPS animation on the LCD screen without having to modify any of the electronics inside the device.



LCD SUN HOOD: It seems to me that two different sun hoods were used. One type of hood was used for the close-up shots. This one looks like a standard foldable plastic LCD sun hood. Then, for wide shots, they used a slightly different hood. That one looks like it had some “extension” pieces added to extend the sun hood out a bit farther.



KEYPAD: I also noticed that one of the keys on the keypad is labeled differently than the original Tektronix unit. The prop has a key labeled “CONFIG” while the same key on the original device is labeled “LINE SEL.”



If any of you have any idea as to what is going on with the part(s) at the base of the antenna, or what specific sun hood was used, please let me know. It’s a long shot, I know. There aren’t many good detailed shots to use as reference.

 

[CT1138]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS handheld device

Sounds like an awesome project! Looking forward to seeing more of this.

 

[Rymo]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS

My Tektronix WFM90 arrived yesterday. And, to my surprise, it powers on and works fine. The eBay listing described it as "for parts" but I think the seller simply didn't try to test it and just sold it as-is. I actually kind of prefer the low-res look of the built in LCD. It seems to more closely match the look of the LCD shown in the film. If I replaced the stock LCD, the new one would be much higher resolution.

Out of curiosity, I'm going to play my animation through the BNC video input on the device to see what it looks like playing on the stock LCD screen.

 

[Rymo]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS

FIRST VIDEO TEST
Here is the first test showing what my animation looks like on the stock Tektronix LCD screen. I rendered my animation as a standard definition 4:3 video and burned it to a DVD. I then ran the composite video out of my DVD player into a BNC-to-RCA adapter, and into the video input on the Tektronix. (The cable plugged into the right side of the device is an A/C power adapter. It can also run off of 6 C-cell batteries, but I don't have any at the moment)

This is still my first draft animation. If I decide to stick with the stock Tektronix LCD, I'm definitely going to have to adjust the line weights and font sizes on some of the graphics in order for them to show up more clearly on that lo-res display.

 

[MB Trooper]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS

That is really cool. The animation is great you must be very happy with it.

 

[Rymo]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS

That is really cool. The animation is great you must be very happy with it.

Thanks! I still have some tweaking to do on the animation, but I think it's a good start.

 

[Rymo]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS

My eventual plan is to install a Raspberry Pi inside and wire the composite video out of the Raspberry Pi directly to the video input of the Tektronix, all internally. This will essentially bypass the video port on the outside which will allow me to mount the antenna to the external BNC connector without interfering with the video feed to the LCD screen.

Ideally, I'd like to configure the Raspberry Pi to start the animation automatically upon startup, and loop the clip until the unit is turned off.

 

[Mike J.]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS

One of the hoods may be a camera viewfinder hood, from an old medium-format camera. They were usually black-painted stamped metal. Your screencaps seem to show a decent thickness to the hood walls, so I may be wrong.

 

[Rymo]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS

One of the hoods may be a camera viewfinder hood, from an old medium-format camera. They were usually black-painted stamped metal. Your screencaps seem to show a decent thickness to the hood walls, so I may be wrong.

Thanks for the input. I had stumbled upon some medium format camera hoods at some point during my research, but I didn't pay much attention to them. I'll give them another look.

 

[Rymo]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS

RASPBERRY PI PLACEMENT

I have decided to go ahead and use the Tektronix device in it's current configuration. I like how the video looks on the built in LCD, and I also won't have to modify the device much from it's original state, which should simplify things. This means the only thing I'm going to need to add to the inside of the device is the Raspberry Pi, which will be used for storing the animation and providing video playback to the LCD.

I'm going to use a Raspberry Pi Zero since it is very small and there is limited space inside the Tektronix device. There is an open location on the bottom right portion of the keypad which is just enough space to mount the Raspberry Pi Zero.

I had considered mounting it in the battery compartment, but that would have taken away my ability to power the unit from batteries. I want the prop to be functional as a portable device, so the battery compartment needs to remain as it is. I had also considered mounting the Raspberry Pi Zero on it's side in the open space above the LCD screen. But, it wouldn't be very easy to access it in that location.



RASPBERRY PI POWER

My next challenge was figuring out how to power the Raspberry Pi. The common method of powering it is from a USB cable, but the Tektronix does not have any onboard USB ports. So, I did some poking around inside the device and I found an unused header on the right side of the keypad circuit board. According to the Tektronix service manual, this header ( J10 ) is used for testing purposes. I checked the header using my multimeter and found that it outputs 5V DC when the device is powered on. This is perfect because I wanted the Raspberry Pi to power on/off at the same time as the Tektronix, and 5V DC matches the output voltage if USB, so it's exactly what the Raspberry Pi requires to operate.



I have ordered my Raspberry Pi Zero (only $5, can you believe it!) so it should be arriving soon. Then I'll configure it, bench test it, and finally install it. In the meantime, I'll be working on a revised animation and researching the remaining exterior parts I need.

 

[Psicorp7]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS

The video in the unit looks great! Well done! :thumbsup

 

[Rymo]

Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Marksmann GPS

The video in the unit looks great! Well done! :thumbsup

Thanks! I bought the device thinking it was a non-working unit. But, now I'm actually happy that it ended up powering on and working fine. I like how the video looks playing on the built-in LCD. It has a lo-res, standard definition, 90's look that I think compliments the prop well. It reflects the technology that was available when The Lost World was made, which I think it cool.

 

[Rymo]

ANOTHER MYSTERY PART

So, I noticed another detail on the GPS prop that I'm having trouble identifying. There appears to be a metallic piece protruding from the bottom of the prop. I never noticed it before. There are a few shots where it can be seen from the side and from the back.


There is nothing on the bottom of the original Tektronix device that could be mistaken for this piece.


To me, it kind of looks like a modified PCMCIA Cardbus card. It may also be a type of video or computer connector. It's difficult to tell.


As always, if any of you have any ideas what this part may be, I'd love to hear what you think. Thanks for all of your input so far.

 

[Rymo]

CONFIGURING THE RASPBERRY PI

My Raspberry Pi Zero mini-computer arrived this past weekend. It has a microSD card slot, a few microUSB ports, a miniHDMI port, and then some blank solder points that can be used for adding extra options.



To begin, I put a microSD card in the Raspberry Pi. The microSD card is where the operating system is stored and also where my GPS animation video is stored. It basically acts as the Raspberry Pi's hard drive.

Next, I installed Raspbian Lite OS on it and then installed a small bit of code called pi_video_looper. I then copied my GPS animation video file to the microSD card. When the Raspberry Pi is turned on, the pi_video_looper loads and automatically starts playing my GPS animation video file. The video keeps playing over and over again until the Raspbery Pi is turned off. I configured it to be completely automated so that I don't have to interact with the Raspberry Pi once it's installed in the Tektronix device. This keeps things simple.

While bench testing and configuring it, I powered it using a USB cable and I used the HDMI output plugged into an HD monitor to verify that the video playback was working properly. These were only temporary solutions. Once the Raspberry Pi is installed inside the Tektronix device, I will not be powering it using the USB port and I will not be using the HDMI output. This is because the Tektronix device does not have USB nor does it support HDMI video.

Instead, I will be powering the Raspberry Pi using two of the blank solder points and I will be using the "TV" output since it provides a standard-definition signal that the Tektronix LCD can support.

I soldered some headers to two of the blank solder points which are reserved for power. I also soldered a header to the "TV" output and I soldered an extra header to two more of the blank solder points. These pins will be used to connect an off button.

 

[Rymo]

RASPBERRY PI OFF SWITCH

My plan is to use the Tektronix on-board power to provide power the Raspberry Pi. This means that when the Tektronix power button is pressed, the Tektronix device will turn on and the Raspberry Pi will turn on at the same time. This also means that when the Tektronix device is turned off, the Raspberry Pi will also immediately power off.

There is one problem with this method: It is not good to power off a Raspberry Pi by suddenly cutting it's power, which is essentially what would happen when the Tektronix is turned off. If a Raspberry Pi is turned off by suddenly cutting it's power, the operating system may become corrupted and it will no longer boot. Ideally, the Raspberry Pi should be shutdown by logging into it and typing in a shutdown command which allows it to turn off gracefully.

The Raspberry Pi is going to be installed inside the Tektronix device so there will be no way to access it in order to issue the SHUTDOWN command. Therefore, I need to install a dedicated OFF button that, when pressed, will prompt a piece of code to run on the Raspberry Pi which will shut it down gracefully.

First, I installed some code on the Raspberry Pi that constantly monitors the status of the "Off Button" pins that I had soldered to two of the solder points .


If something shorts across those two pins, completing the circuit, it will trigger a piece of code to run on the Raspberry Pi which will shut it down properly. After the Raspbery Pi is shut down, it will then be safe to turn the entire Tektronix device off using the normal Tektronix power button. To "short" the pins, I'm going to use a small tactile switch.


I don't want to add this extra switch to the outside of the Tektronix device because I don't like the way it would look. So, I'm going to try integrating it into one of the rubber buttons that already exists on the Tektronix. The Tektronix buttons are molded rubber that sit on top of a circuit board with contact points. When the rubber button is pressed, a small conductive pad completes the circuit on the contact point.


There is just enough room under the rubber keys for me to mount my push button. I'll mount it under one of the rubber buttons so that when the rubber button is pressed, my OFF switch will be activated.

This way the Tektronix keypad will still look stock although one of the keys will be re-purposed as the Raspberry Pi off button.

 

[Rymo]

FIRST BENCH TEST USING RASPBERRY PI

Here's a look at my first bench test using the Raspberry Pi for video playback into the video input of the Tektronix. It worked pretty well.

VIDEO OF THE TEST

Here's the setup. The Raspberry Pi is supplying video to the Tektronix video input. I'm powering the Raspberry Pi using a USB power adapter. The small push button switch is the OFF switch that turns the Raspberry Pi off.


This is what the Raspberry Pi displays as it's booting up. It takes about 45 seconds to boot up.


Here is what the animation looks like playing from the Raspberry Pi. The image quality is the same if not better than what I got with my initial tests using a DVD player as the video source.

 

[Rymo]

I took a break from the electronics side of things and made a new device label to replace the stock Tektronix label.

I designed the new label in Photoshop and printed it on adhesive label paper.



I then covered the label with a strip of packing tape to give it a glossy plastic appearance.


I cut the label out with an x-acto knife and adhered it where the old label used to be.