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Model Railroad Electronics and Control |
A-TRACK
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A-TRACK – Your DCC Buddy
A-Track for Windows (A-Track) is a powerful
extension to complement the facilities of your NCE Power Pro Digital Command
Control system and to assist you in running your model railroad.
A-Track allows you to store full details of all of
your locomotives, with all of their DCC configuration parameters, in a
readily-accessible format on a personal computer – but without requiring you to
be any kind of computer expert.
A-Track’s back-up copy of all of the data held
within each DCC decoder fitted in the locomotives which make up your roster,
safeguards all the hours of effort put in by you (or your Club’s DCC expert) in
programming and configuration.
A-Track is a software application which is runs,
under Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 on a standard Personal Computer,
and is connected to the NCE Command Station via a small hardware unit (the ATUN
Interface), as shown below –
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A-Track and the ATUN Interface box do not alter the
way in which the NCE Command Station and Handheld Cabs operate, or are
connected to the track and to each other, in any respect, so that you can
continue to use them exactly as before – but with A-Track available to lend a
powerful helping hand in the background.
As well as looking after the contents of your DCC
decoders, A-Track will also let you monitor, set up, save, and restore the
complete status and operational parameters of the NCE Command Station and all
attached Cabs from your personal computer, freeing you from the task of having
to set everything up from scratch at the start of a session, and leaving you
with more time to enjoy your model railroading.
Safeguarding Your DCC
Decoder Configurations
Using A-Track, you can read and save the status and
parameters of each new locomotive decoder as delivered by the manufacturer. You
will then be able to see the complete configuration details of the locomotive
at a glance, on the PC screen, rather than only being able to check one
parameter at a time by using a standard handheld Power Pro Cab. A-Track can
handle all types of decoders, including sound decoders, from all manufacturers
who comply with National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) DCC standards.
A-Track gives you total control over decoder
programming and locomotive tuning. You can make changes to the decoder
parameters directly, without having to compute or type in complicated numerical
values, then immediately try out the effects, and decide whether to keep the
alterations or go back to the original values.
Being able to keep back-up copies of each decoder’s
settings is especially valuable if you make an error in programming one or more
parameters, and completely upset your careful tailoring of a locomotive’s
performance and characteristics. A-Track will allow you to retrieve the
previous decoder set-up and restore the locomotive to the state it was in
before your inadvertent mistake.
Because A-Track lets you look at the decoder
set-ups for several locomotives at the same time, and see the differences
between them, it is relatively simple to tune the speed (and function)
characteristics of these locomotives to
run together in a consist. You can then run the locomotves individually, or
together in the consist, on the track directly from the PC screen in order to
check out the results, returning to the programming function if necessary to
complete any fine tuning.
Whenever you purchase a new locomotive which is
similar to one already in your roster, you can save a lot of programming time
and effort by using A-Track to copy the decoder parameters from the configured
locomotive to the new one – after making a back-up copy of the original
settings in the new locomotive, of course (just in case !). Programming of the
new locomotive is then reduced to giving it an appropriate description and a
unique DCC address, together with any minor extra enhancements that you might
want to make.
Protection for Your
Command Station and Handheld Cab Setups
Through the ATUN Interface link, A-Track gives you
access to the NCE Command Station, and hence the ability to display all of the
key parameters stored in its internal memory on the PC screen. This allows you
to perform Command Station and Handheld Cab setup directly from the computer,
changing parameters to suit your immediate requirements, and to define and
manipulate the composition of consists.
All parameters stored in the Command Station memory
(System, Macros, Consists, and Cab Status) can be selectively saved (backed-up)
to files on the PC’s hard disk, or on CD-R or a USB flash drive, and then
recalled at any future time to restore the Command Station and its attached
Cabs to a state corresponding to a previously-recorded operating session. There
is no practical limit to the number of different Command Station or Cab setups
which can be saved to, or restored from, the computer’s permanent or removable
storage.
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Features of the original Atari
version – a comprehensive solution to Digital Command Control
– and
its evolution to Windows and as an extension to the NCE Power Pro DCC System
- Central, computer-based control console
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- Base station with support for multiple power boosters
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- Up to 8 handheld contollers for simultaneous control of eight locomotives or consists
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- Compliant with NMRA DCC standards
- Roster for each operating session of up to 64 locomotives
- Save all operational parameters and locomotive programming to disk
Further pictures of the various items of A-TRACK Atari hardware, together with some screenshots showing the Atari A-TRACK in operation, can be found in files on the Download page.
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Summary
A-TRACK is a program originally developed for the (aged but venerable) Atari XL/XE range of computers which implements the Digital Command Control (DCC) system for the operation of model railroads. It has now been fully converted to run under any version of Windows from XP upwards.
A-TRACK supports the full range of features defined in the DCC Standards and Recommended Practices issued by the National Model Railroad Association and, with the addition of a hardware interface box (the DCC Interface Unit or DIU) to link the computer to the track, and a set of handheld controllers plugged into a network of sockets wired around your layout, will let you operate up to eight locomotives on the track at the same time. A-TRACK provides total control over a model railroad layout from your Atari computer keyboard, allowing you to set up a roster of locomotives for an operating session, allocate locos to consists and to selected handheld controllers, and even to operate all turnouts or signals from a central location. A-TRACK also incorporates full programming facilities for the decoders in the locomotives, and can save all details of the set-up for each locomotive, and the operating session, to disk for safekeeping and use at future sessions.
DCC allows the simultaneous operation of almost any number of model locomotives on complex track layouts without the use of conventional block switching, ie. each locomotive does not have to be controlled within a single section of track allocated specifically to it. The speed and direction of each locomotive can be set independently regardless of where it is on the track (a feature, naturally, which has to be used with care !). Control can also be exercised over multiple locomotives treated as a single unit (MUs or consists) and over accessories such as lighting, signalling, and points (turnouts).
The same decoders fitted to locomotives can be used to control static trackside accessories such as signals and turnouts. However, specialised accessory decoders with multiple switched outputs are normally employed for this purpose unless, of course, the accessory (a turntable or crane, for example) requires control of an electric motor.
A-TRACK and the
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History
In the Jan/Feb 1996 issue of Atari Classics magazine there was an appeal from an enthusiast in California, one Decker McAllister, for some help in designing an interface from an Atari 8-Bit home computer to control model railways using the Digital Command Control system - since neither he nor his colleagues had the necessary electronics or assembler code skills.
Yours truly volunteered to assist, and then spent virtually
all my free time over the next four years designing first the hardware (the
easy bit - I'm an electronics engineer by profession) and then the software.
Because of the need to function and control locmotives in real time, the use of
Basic was out of the question, and all software was written in Assembler code.
The source listing stretches to over 15,000 lines of code (around 200 pages). I
think it must be one of the biggest assembler programs ever written for the
Atari Classic (the Atari 400/800 Operating System runs to 5800 lines). To ease
operation, the software also includes a handler to allow use of a mouse -
although a normal peripheral on PCs, a mouse was never supported by Atari
Classic operating systems. Mice intended for either the
After nearly two years of work (and considerably beyond my initial estimates) the first demonstration version of the software, was delivered to Decker and his colleague Bob DeMoss in Long Beach, California and to Charles Cole of the Cochise & Western Model Railroad Club in Sierra Vista, Arizona (co-opted into the project by Decker) just before Christmas 1997 for evaluation. Much to my relief it ran perfectly on the NTSC (USA) versions of the Atari Classic - since the software involves a lot of critical timing routines I was worried that changing to 60Hz screen frame rate from the normal PAL 50Hz rate would disrupt operations.
However, it took another full year of work to complete the
design of the interface electronics, to bring them into line with the needs of
the software, and then to build sets of equipment for delivery to my patient
‘customers’ in
There was yet another year of development to produce final versions of the plug-in, walk-around handheld controllers to complete the A-TRACK system, together with associated software upgrades, but final delivery was achieved in March 2000. The largest installation, at the C&WMRRC was in continuous operation, with only minor (and easily rectified) glitches, since then right up until late 2007.
During this period of successful operation, it became clear that the limit of 64 locomotives in the A-TRACK roster was a serious limitation for club operations, being unable to accommodate all the locos belonging to the members. A-TRACK could not easily be expanded to hold a larger roster since the program already used all but a few hundred bytes of the available standard Atari 64Kbyte memory. The solution was to write a companion program, A-STILE, which allows all the club’s locomotives to be handled in a single file, and selected rosters of up to 64 locos to be transferred to A-TRACK for specific operating sessions. Further details of A-STILE can be found on the Projects page.
Sadly, although Decker Mcallister had seen the initial successful installation, he passed away in late 1999 following a short illness. Decker’s boundless enthusiasm sustained the project throughout its lengthy development, and ensured that it does what model railroaders want - without them having to be computer experts. A-Track is dedicated to his memory.
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Acknowledgements
Production of the software for A-TRACK would have been almost impossible without the use of the excellent SIO2PC file transfer software produced by Nick Kennedy to connect my Atari 800XL to a PC. The actual connection is made through an RS232 interface, built around a Maxim MAX232 chip, connected between the the Atari SIO port and any serial port on the PC. The interface is relatively easy to construct following the clear documentation provided by Nick.
Once connected, the SIO2PC software running on the PC turns the PC into a set of 'super' Atari disk drives which can be handled under any Atari DOS system without any modifications to the Atari hardware, and without any additional software running on the Atari machine. Atari files can be stored on the PC hard drive or transferred to PC floppy disks, so you can have your complete Atari library almost instantly to hand.
Using SpartaDOS (my preferred operating system for the Atari Classic) it is possible to set up these 'super' disks on the PC with a capacity of 1MB - which was essential for the A-TRACK project where the source files amount to around 500KB and the Assembler list file alone occupies in excess of 650KB. I have to admit that files of this size are totally beyond the capabilities of any of the Atari text editors, so I actually use the PC to generate and edit all of the Assembler source code. This is then transferred to the Atari 800XL via an RS232 comms link, using a P:R: Connection and BobTerm at the Atari end to handle the communications. BobTerm, written by Bob Puff of CSS, is by far the best comms program for the Atari Classic machines and translates the PC's CR/LF ASCII characters to Atari 'End-of-Line' characters 'on the fly'. After a little more manipulation on the 800XL, the translated source file (held on an SIO2PC 'super' disk in the PC) can then be accessed by the Assembler/Editor cartridge and assembled to produce the required machine-code object program and the output list file. These are output directly to another SIO2PC 'super' disk file on the PC, since there is no way the very large files involved could be held within the 800XL’s 64 KByte memory, or on a real Atari disk drive.
Although it all sounds very complex, it is relatively easy to use in practice - and very satisfying to utilise the PC as an Atari peripheral!
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Future Development
Unfortunately, the Atari 8-bit machines became obsolete a long time ago with the relentless march of the IBM PC, so the future of A-TRACK lay in converting it to run on a PC under Windows. The initial intention, at least, was to retain as much of the A-TRACK hardware as possible, including the DCC Interface Unit (DIU) and the handheld controllers, so there would be no changes required to the model railroad layouts where it is currently employed.
To make things as simple as possible for myself, the
software is written using Visual Basic (VB6), and the interface between the PC
and the
Over time, it became clear that attempting to retain (and
support) all of the original hardware was not the best of ideas, and a decision
was made to interface A-Track to commercial DCC hardware. The NCE Power Pro
range was selected as the easiest to handle, and development proceeded.
Currently, a fully-operational system with hardware interface and application
software has been working since August, 2008 at the Cochise & Western Model Railroad Club
in
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Copyright © JT Chamberlain 2004-20011 All rights reserved |
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All trademarks and logos used in these pages are the property of their respective holders |
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Page Last Updated 2 November 2011 |