New model railroad software

Forum,

I'm about to launch a new program for railroaders. I'm looking for testers and early-adopter types who might care to try the thing and provide some feedback and bug reports.

The program is called "TrainPlayer." It comes with a set of classic track plans equipped with invisible electronic rails. You get an MR-style control panel and an infinite supply of rolling stock, and what you do is build and run trains. If you ever wanted to try your hand at operating the Virginia & Truckee, here's your chance.

The program and a starter collection of layouts are available for download from the web site:

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I just swept the walk out front of the site, and it is now open for public viewing, as of this post. Drop in and let me know what you think.

Thanks.

-- Jim Dill

Reply to
Jim
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-- Jim

Reply to
Jim

Jim,

Tres Cool!

This is a neat idea. I wish I had more time to play with it this week, but I've got so much on the stove...

Mike Tennent

"Jim" wrote:

"IronPenguin"

Reply to
Mike Tennent

Might be nice if you had something on the web site re: operating system and hardware requirements...

Reply to
Joe Ellis

It might be nice if the UNINSTALL function was operable too! I had to do a system restore in XP to get rid of it.

John

Reply to
John Franklin

Well, being a Mac user, that's not something I'm worried about - especially since the software seems to be limited to Windoze systems in the first place.

The screen shot seems _very_ much like Abracadata's "Design Your Own Railroad" system overlaid on a graphic background.

I hope appropriate rights clearances (particularly for the art, since it clearly is not original...) were obtained. The full page of track plans seems questionable, at best. Simply stating that the drawings are "Copyright © Kalmbach Publishing" isn't really enough - it should state "Used with permission" if that in fact is the case - if not, they shouldn't be used at all.

Reply to
Joe Ellis

Thanks for the comments.

  1. The posted version now has a repaired uninstaller. You can download again and just hit Uninstall when it first comes up (he said hopefully).

  1. Operating system requirements are now posted.

  2. If it looks like DYOR, there's a reason. I was the one who wrote that for (the now-defunct) Abracadata back in 1990.

  1. I'm working with Kalmbach on the contractual arrangements. They're aware of the site and the product and the use of the layouts, in fact it was they who suggested putting up the MR ones. I did, however, change the 101 Layouts page so clicking the thumbnail no longer gets you the full image.

  2. How come John Franklin's message got quoted here but not posted?

-- Jim

Reply to
Jim

Jim wrote: [...]

That's an issue between you and the news server that you use.

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

Just curious, what would be involved in expanding the software so that it could have aerial photos or geodesic maps as backgrounds? It could be a hoot running a train along some of the old abandoned short lines, especially if switching for the old industries was possible.

The geodesic maps have no copyright, so using them for backgrounds wouldn't step on any toes. Many older ones are available as files at:

Reply to
3D

Interesting idea!

If you know which one of those maps that has a nice dense collection of tracks and yards, please point it out. Doing the open countryside would probably take too much background bitmap.

-- Jim

Reply to
Jim

Good! I'm glad to hear you're doing it right.

Any chance of you doing a Mac version? ;)

Reply to
Joe Ellis

I paid my Mac dues in the DYOR days. It was painful.

Reply to
Jim

I installed the demo on a Win2K system. It doesn't run, it complains that it is missing gdiplus.dll. Be very careful installing this software!!! I tried installing it to a non-existant directory and it didn't prompt to create it, it just installed in the parent directory. The uninstall blew away *everything* in that directory not only it's own files. I lost several unrelated subdirectories for not paying closer attention. I guess I should know better!!!

---john.

Reply to
John Haskey

terraserver is your friend:-)

Reply to
Dana Miller

They're better now. Really they are. If the Xtrkcad guys can swing windows and Linux, it can't be that hard to do on the Mac (Under OS X).

Reply to
Dana Miller

I find this hard to believe. It does create a dir if it doesn't exist. It uses the system file copy routine to populate the dir, so if it were invalid you'd get an alert.

We're working on the gdiplus issue. This might be something you'd have to download from MS if you aren't using XP. but I don't know yet. Another user reported the same problem.

-- Jim

Reply to
Jim

By the way, I'm sorry about the loss of your files. You're right, the uninstaller would do that, and needs some protection. We'll straighten out these issues, it's why we need beta testers.

-- Jim

Reply to
Jim

Usually Beta testers get paid in some way, that's how it worked for us at intel. When we used XP in it's myriads of rebuilds we got something from MS for that............ It's was no big deal for me to do a system restore, but I would be highly pissed if I had lost other files. Like you, my PC helps me make a living.......

John

Reply to
John Franklin

John,

I've never heard of game testers being compensated, except for getting a copy of the final version. Most do it just to be involved.

Mike Tennent "IronPenguin"

Reply to
Mike Tennent

Uh Mike, is that NOT compensation?

John

Reply to
John Franklin

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