Alcorn McBride Knowledge Base

For the V16 Pro/V4 Pro:

Method 1: Custom Message Triggers
Setup a "Device" as manufacturer "Custom" and model "Custom". Select a specific UDP port rather than leaving the default of "0" (for example 5000). Have the other system send whatever strings you'd like to port 5000. For example, use the text "startmain\r". You could use any text you'd like. Setup a "message" type trigger for each sequence by clicking on the "triggers" button in the sequence view. You can setup any response you'd like back to the other system using the "Message Out" command.

Method 2: Alcorn ASCII UDP protocol
No device setup is required. Have the other system send commands to port 2638 of the V16Pro. "PL" starts a sequence. For example:

My Main ShowPL<h0D>

would start the sequence "My Main Show". Do not use quotes around sequence names. You could also use a sequence number like 1PL<h0D>.

Similarly, the below sets a variable named "myVar" to 1:

myVar|1VA<0D>

For more details, check out the "Control" section of the manual or just look at the strings sent by AMI-Terminal when V16Pro is selected. This is very simple to setup, but the downside is that you'll just always get an "R\r" response. No custom responses back to your other controller.

Method 3: Alcorn 8-bit UDP
You can use the "classic" 8-bit protocol over UDP. Just setup a device for "Alcorn McBride, Inc" and "Incoming 8 or 9 bit". Then use the old style 8-bit control.  This is the most limited (no setting of string variables, start sequences only by number) and not recommended unless you need it for legacy purposes.

For the V16+/V4+/V2+/InterActivator:

There are two basic ways to interface other controllers to Alcorn McBride controllers: Voltage/Contact Closures and RS-232. When interfacing using Voltage/Contact Closures you can wire directly to the rear panel inputs of the controller and start sequences from these triggers. If you need more triggers than the Show Controller has inputs available, you can multiplex outputs from your other controller and strobe them in to the Show Controller. Trigger a sequence off of the strobe input and use the Inport command (see the Show Control User's Guide) to build a variable value. When using RS-232, set your Show Controller's port for Alcorn 8-bit Control and send the appropriate Alcorn 8-bit messages. We recommend using SetVarEQ messages so you do not have to worry about changing your sequence numbers around when you modify your script, as you would have to do if you use StartSequence commands. See page 16-6 of the http://www.alcorn.com/library/manuals/index.html Show Control User's Guide for more information on Alcorn 8-bit commands.