DCC computer control

My NCE system has a serial port connector. I can use a program like HyperTerminal to send commands.

From my understanding the serial port does the work, there is little you can do about adjusting the timing from the UART, it's a case of finding the right baud rate to provide the signalling size needed . The hardware does in fact seem to act like an amplifier.

Yes, this is my choice usually, but I am under some software limitations with my target platform (java based windows) I might be able to convince him that he should run linux, but I doubt that.

I looked at this project, but with my target platform, a linux device driver won't cut it. I am stuck with using the serial port unfortunatly

Anthony,

I think you will find communication solely through a serial port potentially troublesome. There are quite a few people writing software applications for DCC, both commercially or personally, though.

The system architecture used by Digitrax is called LocoNet.

There is a sub-group of the Digitrax Yahoo users group called locoNet_hackers with almost nine hundred members, where you will find information about communication and software projects.

There is also a device called LocoBuffer that is made specifically to over come serial port communication deficiencies.

You might also want to check out

JMRI: A Java Model Railroad Interface

and its user group

The software and hardware above require a DCC system, but a $150 Digitrax Zephyr and a LocoBuffer is all you need as an inexpensive, fully functional command station.

Regards,

Britt Harrington Miami, Florida

Well, my targeted user is not me. I have been using Linux since 1992-1993 and have been writing software for it most of my professional career. My brother in law on the other hand, although he's computer savvy, if he needs to install Linux to use it, probably won't. He is savvy enough, but I doubt he's got time to invest to learn everyting necessary to operate a linux machine. I did look at lintrain with an eye to putting a MAX232 on the front of it, but with all the feedback lines it wasn't looking as simple as that.

BTW you do realise that not all parallel ports are created equal right? I have 3 machines here (albeit older) that cannot raise an interrupt from the parallel port...

I found another device called SPROG which seems that it _might_ do what I'm after...

In article , Anthony Toft writes

Wow! I've never come across that - the parallel port interrupt was in the spec of the original IBM PC, and I would regard any machine that lacks it as not truly compatible. I'm well aware that lots of other things differ, which is why I've used only the minimum spec printer port facilities. I started developing what became LinTrain on an old 486 where the interrupt had to be selected by a hardware jumper.