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Model train control system

1. nes oe iLogicalPort 1 Select Logical port 1 for communications iController 1 Select controller from the list above iComPort 0 use COMI 0 means com1 Digitrax must use Com1 or Com2 Digitrax Baud rate requires 16 4K Most COM ports above Com2 do not support 16 4K Check with the manufacture of your smart com card for the baud rate Keep in mind that Dumb com cards with serial port support 1 Com4 can only support 2 com ports like com1 com2 or com3 com4 If you change the controller do not forget to change the baud rate to match the command station See your user manual for details Vk sk ck sk sk ck ake 3e sek elo 0 Baud rate is 300 1 Baud rate is 1200 2 Baud rate is 2400 3 Baud rate is 4800 4 Baud rate is 9600 5 Baud rate is 14 4 6 Baud rate is 16 4 7 Baud rate is 19 2 iPortRate 4 Parity values 0 4 odd even mark space iPortParity 0 Stop bits 0 1 2 gt 1 1 5 2 iPortStop 0 iPortRetrans 10 iPortWatchdog 2048 iPortFlow 0 Data bits 0 7 Bits 1 8 bits iPortData 1 Display the port and controller information iError EngCmd KamPortGetMaxLogPorts IMaxLogical iError EngCmd KamPortGetMaxPhysical IMaxPhysical IMaxSerial IMaxP
2. HOVO lddV 182 lt TWWYON LV 0 141 0 INV3avno NOLLISOd NOILSOd HOWVHS AYOHAVWAS 54 9 45 NOILVOICNI US 6 270 040 B1 Sheet 10 of 13 Aug 7 2001 U S Patent Vo Did m Q x lt Omm Orm gt lt Ome HOVO lddV d HdW SI MOTS 21 ON GHTIVNDIS 0 5 WOIGSAD MOVUL OL WAAOSSOUD 91 ON ALNOU 7 AT OL LAONAAL Gadds HoOIH HONOYHL 1 DNIO IRAIG dI TVIWHON OVAL OL LHDIVULS 1 dI LV S IVNDIS 51 45 OLNI JOVAL ANAS ONIONHAIG GAUVATO AI NON as JOVAL SLNAAHAON 5 LIXH DNINGIHAOD TVNOIS HHAOSSOWO 91 ON 4 5 OLNI LDONDIL ON LSVW OL JOVAL D X b GNOO8S SN1IHAOD IVNDIS SHIVOIGNI ANTA LNONANL 0c ON Do HNIT 1 SGO TONI DIA LON SH0d 1 41 45
3. ONILVOIGND TVNDIS US 6 270 040 B1 Sheet 11 of 13 Aug 7 2001 U S Patent GNOOHS AO THS ALV Id UV INONVIAL H8 SLDATI DNDIOOTHI amp NI NIH LIA MOTS QHH820ld SLIIATI 45 GH320 ld DNDIOO TSHLNI NIHLIM 45 CH8003ld 45 LV IVNDIS LX3N ONIHOVO IddV 4 WOIGSIN LV IVNOIS 1 DONIHOVO3lddV HHOO ld 9945 WhIddw LV IVNDIS DNIHOVO IddV 4 44445 OL HOCH ATHLVIOHWIAI ISAW q4HdS WNAWN ONIGHHOXH AO IS LV IVNDIS 1 ONIHOVOUdd VY 4 QH3HdS LVHL OL TONGAA A THLLVIGQHIWIWI LSAN 5 WOIGSIN ONIGHAOXA NIVUL dOLS OL IVNDIS LXHN ONIHOVO IddV 45 IVASION LV 4 NOILVOIGNI AVATI MOTS CH LIATI VH IO JADUIGHN 44 WOIGSW HOVO IddV Whiddw HOVOlddV MOTS 44 4 4 HNVN AO HOM KOU MOM 10 45 US 6 270 040 B1 Sheet 12 of 13 Aug 7 2001 U S Patent 01014 AVON TIVA TAGOW 00 SHOIAHNG TVNYALXA TILLOSH L Oct SHTIOXLLNOO THHOLVdSIG THNVd TOULNOO 006 LNHI IO INV3DO3Id LNHI TO 0 5 P
4. INTIAN GHZIDSHNHHGQ ANVIL AV Ida MOVUL LNNHS JOVAL SIHHHA NIVUL 5 SLNIOL SLNIO S IIV3 FOVAVYT ALLIdSHG dN QH5IOId AV TAA ddd3 OL CGaLVINSNI daLVINSNI TOD AVTHY AVAL S IIV I 1 HONONA LSNW GaAIGNOOONN WOOT IOVINOO au LNOIJ K I 2 p RRRRRR M M R HT r B R 11 STIVA 1 eden a 1 AVIAN NOW ey 9 TVYNDIS INSmWUOO OVAL GSZIOWHNH AOVIVAT YOVAL US 6 270 040 B1 Sheet 7 of 13 Aug 7 2001 U S Patent qqa8ds LVHL OL 3O0G83I A TALVIGHWAI ISAW Q38d LINTT DNIQSHOXS NIVUL 5 LVH L OL A THLVIGHININI LIS N GHHa3dS WNIGdW ONIQHHOX NIVUL D AOTIJA A 0 VH 1o TVNDIS LV dOLS OL D HOVOddV HONVAGV IVNDIS INOOGS LV 4015 OL WOIGHN X HOVOUddV TVNDIS LV 401 OL HOVO3ddV Blvd 4015 4015 NOILVOIGNI 45 SINVN TIdWVXH IVNDIS US 6 270 040 B1 Sheet 8 of 13 Aug 7 2001
5. United States Patent 9500627004081 10 Patent No US 6 270 040 B1 Katzer 45 Date of Patent Aug 7 2001 54 MODEL TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEM 5 696 689 12 1997 Okumura et al 707 19 5 787 371 7 1998 Balukin et al 75 Inventor Matthew A Katzer Portland OR US 5 828 979 10 1998 Polivka et al 246 5 5 940 005 8 1999 Severson et al 340 825 52 73 Assignee KAM Industries Portaland OR US 6 065 406 5 2000 Katzer 701 19 Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this OTHER EUBEICALIONS patent is extended or adjusted under 35 David Chappell Understanding ActiveX and Ole from Stra U S C 154 b by 0 days tegic Technology Series 1996 This patent is subject to a terminal dis cited by examiner clamer Primary Examiner Mark T Le 1 74 Attorney Agent Firm Chernoff Vilhauer 21 Appl No 09 541 926 McClung Stenzel LLP 7 5T Int CL RR 1 00 system which operates a digitally controlled model rail 52 U S o pn 246 1 R 201 19 road transmitting a first command from a first client program 58 Field of Search 246 1 R 3 5 to a resident external controlling interface through a first 246 167 R 187 A 340 146 2 500 540 communications transport A second command is transmit 825 825 01 825 03 825 06 825 07 825 22 ted f
6. 0 6 270 040 1 57 in a synchronous manner with said plurality of digital command stations 70 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b transmitting a second command from a second client program to a resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport c receiving said first command at said resident external controlling interface d receiving said second command at said resident exter nal controlling interface e comparing said first and second commands to one another to determine if the result of executing said first and second commands would result in no net state change of said model railroad and the execution of one of said first command and said second command would result in a net state change of said model railroad and f said resident external controlling interface sending a third and fourth command representative of said first command and said second command respectively to the same digital command station for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad if as a result of said comparing a net state change of said model railroad would result 71 The method of claim 70 wherein said resident external controlling interface communicates in an asynchronous manner with said first an
7. 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 26 continued 3 Function active is boolean TRUE and inactive is boolean FALSE Return Value Type Range Descriptions iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngPutFunction takes the decoder object ID a function ID and a new function state as parameters It sets the specified locomotive database function state to iFunction Note This command only changes the locomotive database The data is not sent to the decoder until execution of the KamCmdCommand command OKamEngGetFunctionMax Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID piMaxFunction int 0 8 Out Pointer to maximum function number 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngGetFunctionMax takes a decoder object ID and a pointer to the maximum function ID as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by piMaxFunction to the maximum possible function number for the specified decoder OKamEngGetName Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID pbsEngName BSTR 2 Out Pointer to locomotive name 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Exact return type
8. 1 61 110 The method of claim 104 further comprising the step of providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface prior to validating said first command against permissible actions regarding the interac tion between a plurality of objects of said model railroad 111 The method of claim 110 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station and validating said responses regarding said interaction 112 The method of claim 111 further comprising the step of comparing said command station responses to previous commands sent to said digital command station to determine which said previous commands it corresponds with 113 The method of claim 110 further comprising the step of updating validation of said first command based on data received from said digital command stations 114 The method of claim 113 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon command station responses rep resentative of said state of said digitally controlled model railroad 115 The method of claim 114 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external
9. Commands that control command flow to the command station This section describes the commands that control the command flow to the command station These commands do things such as connecting and disconnecting from the command station Parameter List Type Range Direction Description iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 In Logical port ID 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCmdConnect takes a logical port ID as a parameter It connects the server to the specified command station OKamCmdDisConnect Parameter List Type Range Direction iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 In 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCmdDisConnect takes a logical port ID as a parameter It disconnects the server to the specified command Description Logical port ID station OKamCmdCommand Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long if In Decoder object ID 1 Opague object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCmdComman
10. DECODER SWITCH TYPE 3 DECODER SENSOR TYPE Return Value Type Range Descriptions iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderGetObjCount takes a decoder class and a pointer to an address count as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by piObjCount to the count of active decoders of the type given by iDecoderClass OKamDecoderGetObjAtIndex Parameter List Type Range Direction Description ilndex int 1 In Decoder array index iDecoderClass int 2 In Class of decoder plDecoderObjectID long 3 Out Pointer to decoder object ID 0 6 270 040 1 23 continued 1 0 to KamDecoderGetAddressCount 1 2 1 DECODER ENGINE TYPE 2 DECODER SWITCH 3 SENSOR TYPE 3 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderGetObjCount takes a decoder index decoder class and a pointer to an object ID as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by plDecoderObjectID to the selected object ID OKamDecoderPutAdd Parameter List Type Range Direction Description iDecoderAddress int 1 In Decoder address iLogicalCmdPortID int 1 65535 2 In command port ID 1 65535 2 In programming port ID iClearState int 3 in Clear state fla9 iModel int 4 In Decoder model type ID plDecoderObject
11. iPortWatchdog 0 setting PORT_WATCHDOG iError EngCmd KamPortPutConfig iLogicalPort 5 iPortFlow 0 setting PORT FLOW 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 14 continued iError EngCmd KamPortPutConfig iLogicalPort 6 iPortData 0 setting PORT DATABITS We need to set the appropriate debug mode for display this command can only be sent if the following is true Controller is not connected port has not been mapped Not share ware version of application Shareware always set to 130 Write Display Log Debug File Win Level Value 1 2 4 7 LEVEL put packets into queues 1 2 8 11 gt LEVEL2 Status messages send to window 1 2 16 19 LEVEL3 1 2 32 35 gt LEVEL4 All system semaphores critical sections 1 2 64 67 LEVELS detailed debugging information 1 2 128 131 gt COMMONLY Read comm write comm ports You probably only want to use values of 130 This will give you a display what is read or written to the controller If you want to write the information to disk use 131 The other information is not valid for end users Note 1 This does effect the performance of you system 130 is a save value for debug display Always set the key to 1 a value 1 of 0 will disable debug 2 The Digitrax control codes displayed are encrypted The
12. nous manner with said first and second client programs while communicating in synchronous manner with said digital command station 166 The method of claim 164 wherein said first commu nications transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 167 The method of claim 164 wherein said first commu nications transport and said second communications trans port are DCOM interfaces 168 The method of claim 164 wherein said first client program and said resident external controlling interface are operating on the same computer 169 The method of claim 164 wherein said first client program said second client program and said resident external controlling interface are all operating on different computers 170 The method of claim 164 further comprising the step of providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface that said first command was successfully validated against permissible actions regarding the interaction between a plurality of objects of said model railroad prior to validating said first command 171 The method of claim 170 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station 172 The method of claim 171 further comprising the step of comparing said command station responses to previ
13. A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b transmitting a second command from a second client program to a resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport c receiving said first command at said resident external controlling interface d receiving said second command at said resident exter nal controlling interface e queuing said first and second commands in a com mand queue having the characteristic that valid com mands in said command queue are removed from said command queue without being executed by said model railroad and f said resident external controlling interface sending a third and fourth command representative of said first command and said second command respectively to the same digital command station for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad if not said removed 212 The method of claim 211 wherein said resident external controlling interface communicates in an asynchro nous manner with said first and second client programs while communicating in a synchronous manner with said digital command station 213 The method of claim 211 wherein said first commu nications transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 214 The method of claim 211 whe
14. DCOM interface 182 The method of claim 179 wherein said first commu nications transport and said second communications trans port are DCOM interfaces 183 The method of claim 176 wherein said first client program and said first processor are operating on the same computer 184 The method of claim 179 wherein said first client program said second client program and said first processor are all operating on different computers 185 The method of claim 176 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station 186 The method of claim 176 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 187 The method of claim 186 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by first processor together with state information from said database related to said first command 188 The method of claim 184 wherein said first processor communicates in an asynchronous manner with said first client program while communicating in synchronous man ner with said plurality of digital command stations 189 A method of operating a digitally controlled model
15. END or KEY POWER OPERATED INTERLOCKING CENTRALIZED SWITCHES TOWER TRAFFIC MANUALLY OPERATED RESTRICTED CONTROL SWITCHES CLEARANCE SS SPRING _ DIRECTION OF TUNNEL SWITCH SIGNAL CONTROLLED ABS AUTOMATIC D T DOUBLE TRACK TRAFFIC BLOCK SIGNALS ST S NGLE TRACK US 6 270 040 B1 Sheet 1 of 13 Aug 7 2001 U S Patent 91 Sls 81 SNOILVLS GNVAWWOD 1 4045 SNOILVIINNINNNOD ADVAYSALNI SNI110HINO2 TVNH3AX3 E e 1 LN3GIS3H 1 045 OL US 6 270 040 B1 Sheet 2 of 13 Aug 7 2001 U S Patent 21501 TOHLNOD ADIAAG TVNd3 1X3 81 S32lA3G IVNH31X3 Ol Dld 35vHOlS 3 0 3204 393 04 34 BUS SnYONOHHONASV anano 30 3204 GNVANWOD SNONOYHINASV LHYOdSNVYL 2 2 US 6 270 040 B1 Sheet 3 of 13 Aug 7 2001 U S Patent ld HOSS320tHd iJSNOdSiH QNVNNWOOD HOSSdoO0Uud LInS3u 217011 NOILINNA NOILVQIIVA YyOSS390dd QNVAWWOD H3QN3iS QNVWWOO YLL US 6 270 040 B1 Sheet 4 of 13 Aug 7 2001 U S Patent MOVULATONIS LS 6 15 YOOTE OLLIVUL MOVUL ATANOd L A OILVWOLQV SAY Ga TIOWLNOO TVNDIS HOLIMS TANNOLL JO NOLLOSUIG DNDhIdS SS AONVUVATO SHHOLIAS daALONLSAA 85 QGHLVNHdO ATIVONVW U
16. It sets the location pointed to by pEnable OKamCVPutEnable Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long B In Decoder object ID iCVRegint 1 1024 2 In CV number iEnableint 3 In CV bit mask 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum is 1024 Maximum for this decoder 15 given by KamCVGetMaxRegister 3 0x0001 SET_CV_INUSE 0 0002 SET_CV_ READ DIRTY 0x0004 SET WRITE DIRTY 0 0008 SET ERROR READ 0 0010 SET ERROR WRITE Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCVPutEnable takes the decoder object ID configuration variable CV number and a new enable state as parameters It sets the server copy of the CV bit mask o iEnable OKamCVGetName Parameter List Type Range Direction Description iCV int 1 1024 In CV number pbsCVNameString BSTR 1 Out Pointer to CV name string Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for C Empty string on error Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCVGetName takes a configuration variable CV number as a parameter It sets the memory pointed to by pbsCVNameString to the name of the CV as defined in NMRA Recommended Practice RP 9 2 2 OKamCVGetMinRegister Parameter List Type Range D
17. KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamMiscGetClockTime KamMiscPutClockTime KamMiscGetInterface Version KamMiscSaveData KamMiscGetControllerName KamMiscGetControllerNameAtPort KamMiscGetCommandStation Value KamMiscSetCommandStation Value KamMiscGetCommandStationIndex KamMiscMaxControllerID KamMiscGetControllerFacility L OVERVIEW This document is divided into two sections the Tutorial and the IDL Command Reference The tutorial shows the complete code for a simple Visual BASIC program that controls all the major functions of a locomotive This program makes use of many of the commands described in the reference section The IDL Command Reference describes each command in detail L TUTORIAL A Visual BASIC Throttle Example Application The following application is created using the Visual BASIC source code in the next section It controls all major locomotive functions such as speed direction and auxiliary functions A Visual BASIC Throttle Example Source Code Copyright 1998 KAM Industries All rights reserved 3 9 3 10 3 11 3 12 This is a demonstration program showing the integration of VisualBasic and Train Server TM interface You may use this application for non commercial usage Date Author Revision Log Engine Commander Computer Dispatcher Train Server Train Tools The Conductor and kamind are registered Trademarks of KAM Industries All rights reserved This first command adds the re
18. Method is the method name OKamAccDelFeedback 0 6 270 040 1 31 continued Parameter List Type Range IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID bsAccNode BSTR 2 In Server node name iFunctionID int 0 31 3 In Function ID number 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Exact parameter type depends on language It is LPCSTR for C 3 Maximum for this decoder is given by KamAccGetFunctionMax Return Value Type Description iError short Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccDelFeedback takes a decoder object ID node name string and function ID as parameters It deletes interest in the function given by iFunctionID by the method given by the node name string bsAccNcde bsAccNode identifies the server application and method to call if the function changes state Its format is Server App Method where Server is the server name App is the application name and Method is the method name Direction Description Range OKamAccDelFeedbackAIl Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID bsAccNode BSTR 2 In Server node name Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Exact parameter type depends on language It is LPCSTR for C Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number s
19. This command only changes the locomotive database The data is not sent to the decoder until execution of the KamCmdCommand command KamDecoderGetMaxSpeed returns the maximum possible speed for the decoder An error is generated if an attempt is made to set the speed steps beyond this value OKamEngGetFunction Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iFunctionID int 0 82 In Function ID number IpFunction int 3 Out Pointer to function value 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 FL is 0 1 8 are 1 8 respectively Maximum for this decoder is given by KamEngGetFunctionMax 3 Function active is boolean TRUE and inactive is boolean FALSE Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngGetFunction takes the decoder object ID a function ID and a pointer to the location to store the specified function state as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by IpFunction to the specified function state OKamEngPutFunction Parameter List Type Range IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Direction Description Decoder object ID iFunctionID int 0 8 2 In Function ID number iFunction int 3 In Function value 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 FL is 0 1 8 are 1 8 respectively Maximum for this decoder is given by KamEngGetFunctionMax
20. U S Patent dL DIJA SSHOKa gt lt HONV ISId ESAE S S S S SS SS SS SS SS S SS SS F WONWIXVW NOLLO3 LO Id JO HNOZ 4 NOLLVOIGNI NOOTE I SSHOXH gt HONVISIG DNDIV3H Lu e 1 K WNWIXVW AO INOZ 1581 144 a gt RH CASOS ARCA CU CULO CC w WW SESS SS SSSSS SS SS YD I NOLLOALOUd HNOZ NOILVOIGNI NIV3LL ONIMOTIOJ TVNOIS 15314 k ONIOVdS NIVUL SSHOXH HONV LISId ONDIV3H 12 82 NC L va U Q WU WU 99 UT ICT TTA ACTU AT E 5 55 5 5 SS SS NW WIXVI 7 k FONV LSIG la 555 VWOWINIIN NOILLOALONd JO ANOZ NOLLVOIGNI SMOOTH US 6 270 040 B1 Sheet 9 of 13 Aug 7 2001 U S Patent cec TNW 4015 60 TIND 945 Ca LORLLSaa LV QHdDO ld 4015 ANY dOLS 8 TNA IVNDIS 1 4015 OL
21. command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 221 The method of claim 220 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface together with state information from said database related to said first com mand 222 The method of claim 211 wherein said validation is performed by an event driven dispatcher 223 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a first processor through a first communications transport b receiving said first command at said first processor c queuing said first command in a command queue having the characteristic that valid commands in said command queue are removed from said command queue without being executed by said model railroad and d said first processor providing an acknowledgment to said first client program through said first communica tions transport indicating that said first command has been executed if not said removed 224 The method of claim 223 further comprising the step of sending said first command to a second processor which processes said first command into a state suitable for a digital command station for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad 225 The method of c
22. commands to the model railroad The communications transport 12 provides an interface between the client program 14 and the resident external controlling interface 16 The communications transport 12 may be any suitable communications medium for the trans mission of data such as the internet local area network satellite links or multiple processes operating on a single computer The preferred interface to the communications transport 12 is a COM or DCOM interface as developed for the Windows operating system available from Microsoft Corporation The communications transport 12 also deter mines if the resident external controlling interface 16 is system resident or remotely located on an external system The communications transport 12 may also use private or public communications protocol as a medium for commu nications The client program 14 provides commands and the resident external controlling interface 16 responds to the communications transport 12 to exchange information A description of COM common object model and DCOM distributed common object model is provided by Chappel in a book entitled Understanding ActiveX and OLE Microsoft Press and is incorporated by reference herein Incorporating a communications transport 12 between the client program s 14 and the resident external controlling interface 16 permits multiple operators of the model railroad at locations distant from the physical model railroad and each other In the
23. depends on language It is Cstring for Empty string on error Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngGetName takes a decoder object ID and a pointer to the locomotive name as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pbsEngName to the name of the locomotive OKamEngPutName Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID bsEngName BSTR 2 Out Locomotive name 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Exact parameter type depends on language It is LPCSTR for C Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngPutName takes a decoder object ID and a BSTR as parameters It sets the symbolic locomotive name to bsEngName OKamEngGetFunctionName Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iFunctionID int 0 8 2 In Function ID number pbsFcnNameString BSTR 3 Out Pointer to function name 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 FL is 0 F1 F8 are 1 8 respectively Maximum for this decoder is given by KamEngGetFunctionMax 3 Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for C Empty string on error Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iErr
24. environment of a model railroad club where the members want to simultaneously control devices of the same model railroad layout which preferably includes multiple trains operating thereon the operators each provide commandi to the resistant external controlling interface and hence the model railroad The manner in which commands are executed for the model railroad under COM and DCOM may be as follows The client program 14 makes requests in a synchronous manner using COM DCOM to the resident external interface controller 16 The synchronous manner of the request is the technique used by COM and DCOM to execute commands The communications transport 12 packages the command for the transport mechanism to the resident external con trolling interface 16 The resident external controlling inter face 16 then passes the command to the digital command stations 18 which in turn executes the command After the digital command station 18 executes the command an acknowledgement is passed back to the resident external controlling interface 16 which in turn passes an acknowl edgement to the client program 14 Upon receipt of the acknowledgement by the client program 14 the communi cations transport 12 is again available to accept another command The train control system 10 without more per mits execution of commands by the digital command sta tions 18 from multiple operators but like the DigiToys Systems software the execution of commands is slo
25. of claim 139 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by first processor together with state information from said database related to said first command 141 The method of claim 137 wherein said first processor communicates in an asynchronous manner with said first client program while communicating in synchronous man ner with said plurality of digital command stations 142 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b transmitting a second command from a second client program to said resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport c receiving said first command and said second com mand at said resident external controlling interface d said resident external controlling interface queuing said first and second commands e queuing said first and second commands in a com mand queue based on a non first in first out prioritiza tion and f said resident external controlling interface sending third and fourth commands representative of said first 5 10 15 25 35 40 45 50 55 60 64 and second commands respectively to a digital com mand station for execution on said digital
26. of claim 38 wherein said first client program said second client program and said first processor are all operating on different computers 44 The method of claim 35 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station 45 The method of claim 35 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 46 The method of claim 45 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by first processor together with state information from said database related to said first command 47 The method of claim 43 wherein said first processor communicates in an asynchronous manner with said first client program while communicating in a synchronous man ner with said plurality of digital command stations 48 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b transmitting a second command from a second client program to said resident external controlling interface through a sec
27. on whether the decoder is set to 14 18 or 128 speed steps and matches the values defined by NMRA S9 2 and RP 9 2 1 0 is stop and 1 is emergency stop for all modes 3 Forward is boolean TRUE and reverse is boolean FALSE Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngGetSpeed takes the decoder object ID and pointers to locations to store the locomotive speed and direction as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by IpSpeed to the locomotive speed and the memory pointed to by IpDirection to the locomotive direction OKamEngPutSpeed Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iSpeed int 2 In Locomotive speed iDirection int 3 In Locomotive direction 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Speed range is dependent on whether the decoder is set to 14 18 or 128 speed steps and matches the values defined by NMRA 59 2 and RP 9 2 1 0 is stop and 1 is emergency stop for all modes 0 6 270 040 1 25 continued 3 Forward is boolean TRUE and reverse is boolean FALSE Return Value Type Range Description iError short Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngPutSpeed takes the decoder object ID new locomotive speed and new locomotive direction as parameters It sets the locomotive datab
28. programming the decoders the system programs the data indicated by the write dirty If both the write error and the write dirty representations are clear then the state is represented by the write cache This assists in keeping track of the programming without excess over head A write only representation indicates that the register may not be read from If this flag is set then a read error may not occur Over time the system constructs a set of representations of the model railroad devices and the model railroad itself indicating the invalid registers read errors and write errors which may increases the efficiently of programing and changing the states of the model railroad This permits the system to avoid accessing particular registers where the result will likely be an error The present inventor came to the realization that the valid registers of particular devices is the same for the same device of the same or different model railroads Further the present inventor came to the realization that a template may be developed for each particular device that may be applied to the representations of the data to predetermine the valid registers In addition the template may also be used to set the read error and write error if desired The template may include any one or more of the following representations such as invalid in use read error write only read dirty read only write error and write dirty for the possible registers of th
29. success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamProgramGetStatus take the decoder object ID and pointer to a place to store the OR d decoder programming status as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by piProgMode to the present programming mode OKamProgramReadCV Parameter List Type Range Direction DecoderObjectID long 1 In iCVRegint 2 In CV number 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum CV is 1024 Maximum for this decoder is given by KamCVGetMaxRegister Description Decoder object ID Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamProgramCV takes the decoder object ID configuration variable CV number as parameters It reads the specified CV variable value to the server database OKamProgramCV Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iCVRegint 2 In CV number iCVValue int 0 255 In CV value 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum CV is 1024 Maximum CV for this decoder is given by KamCVGetMaxRegister Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamProgramCV takes the decoder object ID configuration variable CV number and a new CV value as parameters It programs writes a sing
30. to many devices 2 many clients to one device and 3 many clients to many devices The present inventor came to the realization that the digital command stations provided by the different vendors have at least three different techniques for communicating with the digital decoders of the model railroad set The first technique generally referred to as a transaction one or more operations is a synchronous communication where a com mand is transmitted executed and a response is received therefrom prior to the transmission of the next sequentially received command The DCS may execute multiple com mands in this transaction The second technique is a cache with out of order execution where a command is executed and a response received therefrom prior to the execution of the next command but the order of execution is not neces sarily the same as the order that the commands were provided to the command station The third technique is a local area network model where the commands are trans mitted and received simultaneously In the LAN model there is no requirement to wait until a response is received for a particular command prior to sending the next command Accordingly the LAN model may result in many commands 10 15 20 25 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 8 being transmitted by the command station that have yet to be executed In addition some digital command stations use two or more of these techniques With
31. you need to call KamMiscErrorMessage and supply the error number To Operate your layout you will need to perform a mapping between a Port logical reference Device physical communications channel and a Controller command station for the program to work All references uses the logical device as the reference device for access Errors Addresses used are an object reference To use an address you must add the address to the command station using KamDecoderPutAdd One of the return values from this operation is an object reference that is used for control We need certain variables as global objects since the information is being used multiple times Dim iLogicalPort iController iComPort Dim iPortRate iPortParity iPortStop iPortRetrans iPortWatchdog iPortFlow iPortData Dim IEngineObject As Long iDecoderClass As Integer iDecoderType As Integer Dim IMaxController As Long Dim IMaxLogical As Long IMaxphysical As Long IMaxSerial As Long IMaxParallel As Long sk sk sk sk sk sk sk ck ok 9k ok ck ck R ce ke ce e Form load function Turn of the initial buttons Set he interface information Vk sk sk ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ake ake ake ake ake Ee oe He OE R RO R R Private Sub Form load Dim str Ver As String strCom As String strCntrl As String Dim iError As Integer Get the interface version information SetButtonState False iError EngCmd KamMiscGetInterface Version
32. 0 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b receiving said first command at said resident external controlling interface c queuing said first command in a command queue if said first command is different than all other commands in said command queue and d said resident external controlling interface selectively sending a second command representative of said first command to one of a plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said first and second commands 11 The method of claim 10 further comprising the steps of a transmitting a third command from a second client program to said resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport b receiving said third command at said resident external controlling interface c queuing said third command in a command queue if said third command is different than all other com mands in said command queue and d said resident external controlling interface selectively sending a fourth command representative of said third command to one of said plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon infor
33. 6 270 040 1 17 continued variable OKamCVPutValue Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iCVRegint 1 1024 2 In CV register iCV Value int 0 255 In CV value 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum CV is 1024 Maximum CV for this decoder is given by KamCVGetMaxRegister Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCVPutValue takes the decoder object ID configuration variable CV number and a new CV value as parameters It sets the server copy of the specified decoder CV to iCVValue OKamCVGetEnable Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iCVRegint 1 1024 2 In CV number pEnable int 3 Out Pointer to CV bit mask 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum is 1024 Maximum for this decoder is given by KamCVGetMaxRegister 3 0 0001 SET CV INUSE 0x0002 SET READ 0 0004 SET WRITE DIRTY 0 0008 SET ERROR READ 0 0010 SET CV ERROR WRITE Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCVGetEnable takes the decoder object ID configuration variable CV number and a pointer to store the enable flag as parameters
34. ACE Train Tools Interface Description Building your own visual interface to a model railroad Copyright 1992 1998 KAM Industries Computer Dispatcher Engine Commander The Conductor Train Server and Train Tools are Trademarks of KAM Industries all Rights Reserved Questions concerning the product can be EMAILED to traintools kam rain com You can also mail questions to KAM Industries 2373 NW 185th Avenue Suite 416 Hillsboro Oreg 97124 503 291 1221 Table of contents 1 OVERVIEW 11 System Architecture 2 TUTORIAL 21 Visual BASIC Throttle Example Application 2 2 Visual BASIC Throttle Example Source Code 3 IDL COMMAND REFERENCE 3 1 Introduction 3 2 Data Types 3 3 Commands to access the server configuration variable database KamCVGetValue KamCVPutValue KamCVGetEnable KamCVPutEnable KamCVGetName KamCVGetMinRegister KamCVGetMaxRegister Commands to program configuration variables KamProgram KamProgramGetMode KamProgramGetStatus KamProgramReadCV KamProgramCV KamProgramReadDecoderToDataBase KamProgramDecoderFromDataBase Commands to control all decoder types KamDecoderGetMaxModels KamDecoderGetModelName KamDecoderSetModelToObj KamDecoderGetMaxAddress KamDecoderChangeOldNewAddr KamDecoderMovePor KamDecoderGetPort KamDecoderCheckAddrInUse KamDecoderGetModelFromObj KamDecoderGetModelFacility KamDecoderGetObjCount KamDecoderGetObjAtIndex KamDecoderPutAdd KamDecoderPutDel KamDecoderGetMfgName KamDecoderGet
35. Direction Value If iError 0 Then iError EngCmd KamCmdCommand IEngineObject SetError iError End If End Sub Vk ssh sk s nk ck ck sek ke ses ek Connect Controller Vk s sk sk sk ak sk sk coke ck ok ck ck cce ce e e Private Sub Connect Click Dim iError As Integer These are the index values for setting up the port for use PORT RETRANS 0 Retrans index PORT RATE 1 Retrans index PORT PARITY 2 Retrans index PORT STOP 3 Retrans index PORT WATCHDOG 4 Retrans index PORT FLOW 5 Retrans index PORT DATABITS 6 Retrans index PORT DEBUG 7 Retrans index PORT PARALLEL 8 Retrans index These are the index values for setting up the port for use RETRANS 0 Retrans index PORT RATE 1 Retrans index PORT PARITY 2 Retrans index PORT STOP 3 Retrans index PORT WATCHDOG 4 Retrans index PORT FLOW 5 Retrans index DATABITS 6 Retrans index DEBUG 7 Retrans index PARALLEL 8 Retrans index iError EngCmd KamPortPutConfig iLogicalPort 0 iPortRetrans 0 setting PORT RETRANS iError EngCmd KamPortPutConfig iLogicalPort 1 iPortRate 0 setting PORT RATE iError EngCmd KamPortPutConfig iLogicalPort 2 iPortParity 0 setting PORT PARITY iError EngCmd KamPortPutConfig iLogicalPort 3 iPortStop 0 setting PORT STOP iError Engemd KamPortPutConfig iLogicalPort 4
36. ID long 5 Out Decoder object ID 1 127 for short locomotive addresses 1 10239 for long locomotive decoders 0 511 for accessory decoders 2 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts 3 0 retain state 1 clear state 4 Maximum value for this server given by KamDecoderGetMaxModels 5 Opaque object ID handle The object ID is used to reference the decoder Return Value Type Description iError short Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderPutAdd takes a decoder object ID command ogical port programming logical port clear flag decoder model ID and a pointer to a decoder object ID as parameters It creates a new locomotive object in the ocomotive database and sets the memory pointed to by plDecoderObjectID to the decoder object ID used by the server as a key OKamDecoderPutDel Parameter List Type Range Direction Description DecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iClearState in 2 In Clear state flag 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 0 retain state 1 clear state Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderPutDel takes a decoder object ID and clear flag as parameters It deletes the locomotive object specified by IDecoderObjectID from the locomotive database OKamDecoderGetMfgName
37. Logical iLogicalProgPortID int Logical Range Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID pbsMfgName BSTR 2 Out Pointer to manufacturer name 1 Opaque object ID handle returned KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for C Empty string on error Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderGetMfgName takes a decoder object ID and pointer to a manufacturer name string as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pbsMfgName to the name of the decoder manufacturer OKamDecoderGetPowerMode 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 24 continued Parameter List Type Range Direction IDecoderObjectID long 1 In pbsPowerMode BSTR 2 Out Description Decoder object ID Pointer to decoder power mode 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for C Empty string on error Return Value Type Range Descriptions iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderGetPowerMode takes a decoder object ID and a pointer to the power mode string as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pbsPowerMode to the decoder power mode OKamDeco
38. MDSDTA PROGRAM TRACK 5 CMDSDTA PROGMAIN POFF 6 CMDSDTA FEDMODE ADDR 7 CMDSDTA FEDMODE REG 8 CMDSDTA FEDMODE PAGE 9 CMDSDTA FEDMODE DIR 20 CMDSDTA FEDMODE FLYSHT 21 CMDSDTA_FEDMODE_FLYLNG 30 Reserved 31 CMDSDTA SUPPORT FASTCLK pdwFacility long 2 Out Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamMiscGetControllerFacilty takes the controller ID and a pointer to the location to store the selected controller facility mask It sets the memory pointed to by pdwFacilty to the specified command station facility mask The digital command stations 18 program the digital devices such as a locomotive and switches of the railroad layout For example a locomotive may include several different registers that control the horn how the light blinks speed curves for operation etc In many such locomotives there are 106 or more programable values Unfortunately it may take 1 10 seconds per byte wide word if a valid register or control variable generally referred to collectively as registers and two to four minutes to error out if an invalid register to program such a locomotive or device either of which may contain a decoder With a large number of byte wide words in a locomotive its takes considerable time to fully program the locomotive Further with a railroad layout including many such locomotives and other programma
39. Object D value is returned by the KamDecoderPutAdd call if the decoder is successfully registered with the server This unigue opaque ID should be used for all subsequent calls to reference this decoder A Commands to access the server configuration variable database This section describes the commands that access the server configuration variables CV database These CVs are stored in the decoder and control many of its characteristics such as its address For efficiency a copy of each CV value is also stored in the server database Commands such as KamCVGetValue and KamCVPutValue communicate only with the server not the actual decoder You then use the programming commands in the next section to transfer CVs to and from the decoder OKamCVGetValue Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In iCVRegint 1 1024 2 In CV register pCV Value int 3 Out Pointer to CV value 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Range is 1 1024 Maximum for this decoder is given by KamCVGetMaxRegister 3 CV Value pointed to has a range of 0 to 255 Decoder object ID Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCVGetValue takes the decoder object ID and configuration variable CV number as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pCVValue to the value of the server copy of the configuration 0
40. PowerMode KamDecoderGetMaxSpeed Commands to control locomotive decoders KamEngGetSpeed KamEngPutSpeed KamEngGetSpeedSteps KamEngPutSpeedSteps KamEngGetFunction KamEngPutFunction KamEngGetFunctionMax KamEngGetName KamEngPutName KamEngGetFunctionName KamEngPutFunctionName KamEngGetConsistMax KamEngPutConsistParent KamEngPutConsistChild KamEngPutConsistRemoveObj Commands to control accessory decoders KamAccGetFunction KamAccGetFunctionAIll KamAccPutFunction KamAccPutFunctionAll KamAccGetFunctionMax KamAccGetName KamAccPutName KamAccGetFunctionName KamAccPutFunctionName KamAccRegFeedback KamAccRegFeedbackAll KamAccDelFeedback KamAccDelFeedbackAIl Commands to control the command station KamOprPutTurnOnStation KamOprPutStartStation KamOprPutClearStation KamOprPutStopStation 3 4 3 5 3 6 3 7 3 8 US 6 270 040 B1 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 10 continued KamOprPutPowerOn KamOprPutPowerOff KamOprPutHardReset KamOprPutEmergencyStop KamOprGetStationStatus Commands to configure the command station communication port KamPortPutConfig KamPortGetConfig KamPortGetName KamPortPutMapController KamPortGetMaxLogports KamPortGetMaxPhysical Commands that control command flow to the command station KamCmdConnect KamCmdDisConnect KamCmdCommand Cab Control Commands KamCabGetMessage KamCabPutMessage KamCabGetCabAddr KamCabPutAddrToCab Miscellaneous Commands
41. Text Throttle Value End If End If End Sub L IDL COMMAND REFERENCE A Introduction This document describes the IDL interface to the KAM Industries Engine Commander Train Server The Train Server DCOM server may reside locally or on a network node This server handles all the background details of controlling your railroad You write simple front end programs in a variety of languages such as BASIC Java or to provide the visual interface to the user while the server handles the details of communicating with the command station etc A Data Types Data is passed to and from the IDL interface using a several primitive data types Arrays of these simple types are also used The exact type passed to and from your program depends on the programming language your are using The following primitive data types are used IDL Type BASIC C Java Type Description short short short short Short signed integer int int int int Signed integer BSTR BSTR BSTR BSTR Text string long long long long Unsigned 32 bit value CV Valid Func Address Speed Name ID Range tions Range Steps NMRA 0 None None 2 1 99 14 Compatible Baseline 1 18 1 8 9 1 127 14 Extended 2 1 106 1 9 17 9 1 10239 14 28 18 19 23 128 24 29 30 49 66 95 Mobile 3 1 106 1 106 9 1 10239 14 28 128 Address Name ID CV Range Valid CV s Functions Range Accessory 4 513 593 513 593 8 0 511 Stationary 5 513 1024 513 1024 8 0 511 A long Decoder
42. True UpDownAddress Enabled True Now we check to see if the Engine Address has been set if it has we enable the send button If IEngineObject 0 Then Command Enabled True Throttle Enabled True Else Command Enabled False Throttle Enabled False End If Else Connect Enabled True Disconnect Enabled False Command Enabled False ONCmd Enabled False OffCmd Enabled False DCCAddr Enabled False UpDownAddress Enabled False Throttle Enabled False End If End Sub R ee oe oe Power Off function ak R ake 9k ce ce e Private Sub Dim iError As Integer iError EngCmd KamOprPutPowerOff iLogicalPort SetError iError End Sub Vk kk sk sk 5k fe eo ke A n R fe eo K Power On function ak ake ake ake ake ake ake KI KK kc ce e Private Sub ONCmd_ Click Dim iError As Integer iError EngCmd KamOprPutPowerOn iLogicalPort SetError iError End Sub Vk ee sk fe 5k cock KOK Throttle slider control 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 16 continued Jak sk s sk sk 5k sk ck nk ck Sk fe eee a ae ae ok ok Private Sub Throttle Click If IEngineObject Then If Throttle Value 0 Then Speed
43. WAMOL SHHOLIAS 40 4 04 SNIVUL ONISSVd 10 ANA DAV SKIVA QNDOS SY 2 SHHOLIAS 4 S IVNDIS 224 NOLLVHHd S amp LLVITHIARTHINI ON 55 22 07 WACO NIVUL OL 319 55 f 1 a NX x F 210 OL OI2 NSSZ E av S NONA L say 945 SE NIVUL t dim SSHOXH I TV gi1g8v ldWLL o DNITIVNOIS T ARN OL JOL sav us 1 OF NOISIAIG Jou NOISIAIG AJOL NolSIAIq OLINV ILV ANSHOSTIV 9690 9680 VV 8 AS 9290 9660 9690 9690 ASO 9680 960 C 9081 4 gt US 6 270 040 B1 Sheet 5 of 13 Aug 7 2001 U S Patent OOTA LAAT SVH ONICGHOdad LVHL O WOud HOVSSHW YALAY NIVUL dO HOVOUddV 4 GHaVATO NOLLV LS 3100718 IVNDIS YNOH S LITHdXH OL OIJAVAL JO 8 4 NOLLV LS OL V WO 54 1 MON 32018 LV LISI TIVNOIS dHSOT1O NOLLV LS OS SVH LV 3IOLV3IHdO ANY AOOTE SVH NIV amp L ILNA 4015 LV IS W JOO Tg SUALNY IVNDIS SHSSV
44. a first processor through a first communications transport The first command is received at the first processor The first proces sor provides an acknowledgement to the first client program through the first communications transport indicating that the first command has properly executed prior to execution of commands related to the first command by the digitally controlled model railroad The communications transport is preferably COM or DCOM interface The model railroad application involves the use of extremely slow real time interfaces between the digital 0 6 270 040 1 3 command stations and the devices of the model railroad In order to increase the apparent speed of execution to the client other than using high speed communication interfaces the resident external controller interface receives the command and provides an acknowledgement to the client program in a timely manner before the execution of the command by the digital command stations Accordingly the execution of commands provided by the resident exter nal controlling interface to the digital command stations occur in synchronous manner such as a first in first out manner The COM and DCOM communications transport between the client program and the resident external con trolling interface is operated in an asynchronous manner namely providing an acknowledgement thereby releasing the communications transport to accept further communica tions prior to the actu
45. al execution of the command The combination of the synchronous and the asynchronous data communication for the commands provides the benefit that the operator considers the commands to occur nearly instan taneously while permitting the resident external controlling interface to verify that the command is proper and cause the commands to execute in a controlled manner by the digital command stations all without additional high speed com munication networks Moreover for traditional distributed software execution there is no motivation to provide an acknowledgment prior to the execution of the command because the command executes quickly and most commands are sequential in nature In other words the execution of the next command is dependent upon proper execution of the prior command so there would be no motivation to provide an acknowledgment prior to its actual execution BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS FIG 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a model train control system FIG 2 is a more detailed block diagram of the model train control system of FIG 1 including external device control logic FIG 3 is a block diagram of the external device control logic of FIG 2 FIG 4 is an illustration of a track and signaling arrange ment FIG 5 is an illustration of a manual block signaling arrangement FIG 6 is an illustration of a track circuit FIGS 7A and 7B are illustrations of block signal
46. all these different techniques used to communicate with the model railroad set and the system 10 providing an interface for each different type of command station there exists a need for the capability of matching up the responses from each of the different types of command stations with the particular command issued for record keeping purposes Without matching up the responses from the command stations the databases can not be updated properly Validation functionality is included within the external device control logic 114 to accommodate all of the different types of command stations Referring to FIG 3 an external command processor 200 receives the validated command from the synchronous command processor 110 The external command processor 200 determines which device the com mand should be directed to the particular type of command it is and builds state information for the command The state information includes for example the address type port variables and type of commands to be sent out In other words the state information includes a command set for a particular device on a particular port device In addition a copy of the original command is maintained for verification purposes The constructed command is forwarded to the command sender 202 which is another queue and preferably a circular queue The command sender 202 receives the command and transmits commands within its queue in a repetitive nature until the command is
47. arallel Get the port name and do some checking iError EngCmd KamPortGetName iComPort strCom SetError iError If iComPort gt IMaxSerial Then MsgBox Com port our of range iError EngCmd KamMiscGetControllerName iController strCntrl If iLogicalPort IMaxLogical Then MsgBox 65 Logical port out of range SetError iError 0 6 270 040 1 13 continued End If Display values in Throttle LogPort Caption iLogicalPort ComPort Caption strCom Controller Caption strCntrl End Sub sk ak sk sk ak ak ak ak ak ak fe ak k fe ake ke R ce e Send Command Note Please follow the command order Order is important for the application to work ak sk ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak k ak 9k k fe oe ck fe oe ck oe ce e Private Sub Command Click Send the command from the interface to the command station use the engineObject Dim iError iSpeed As Integer If Not Connect Enabled Then TrainTools interface is a caching interface This means that you need to set up the CV s or other operations first then execute the command iSpeed Speed Text iError EngCmd KamEngPutFunction IEngineObject 0 FO Value iError EngCmd KamEngPutFunction IEngineObject 1 F1 Value iError EngCmd KamEngPutFunction IEngineObject 2 F2 Value iError EngCmd KamEngPutFunction IEngineObject 3 F3 Value iError EngCmd KamEngPutSpeed IEngineObject iSpeed
48. as switches The movement of different objects such as locomotives and entire trains may be monitored by a set of sensors The operator issues control commands from his computer console such as in the form of permissions and class warrants for the time and track used In the existing monolithic computer systems for model railroads a single operator from a single terminal may control the system effectively Unfortunately the present inventor has observed that in a multi user environment where several clients are attempting to simultaneously con trol the same model railroad layout using their terminals collisions periodically nevertheless occur In addition sig nificant delay is observed between the issuance of a com mand and its eventual execution The present inventor has determined that unlike full scale railroads where the track is controlled by a single dispatcher the use of multiple dis patchers each having a different dispatcher console may result in conflicting information being sent to the railroad layout In essence the system is designed as a computer control system to implement commands but in no manner can the dispatcher consoles control the actions of users For example a user input may command that an event occur resulting in a crash In addition a user may override the block permissions or class warrants for the time and track used thereby causing a collision In addition two users may inadvertently send conflicting comman
49. ase speed to iSpeed and the locomotive database direction to iDirection Note This command only changes the locomotive database The data is not sent to the decoder until execution of the KamCmdCommand command Speed is set to the maximum possible for the decoder if iSpeed exceeds the decoders range OKamEngGetSpeedSteps Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID IpSpeedSteps int 14 28 128 Out Pointer to number of speed steps 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngGetSpeedSteps takes the decoder object ID and a pointer to a location to store the number of speed steps as a parameter It sets the memory pointed to by IpSpeedSteps to the number of speed steps OKamEngPutSpeedSteps Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long In Decoder object ID iSpeedSteps int 14 28 128 In Locomotive speed steps 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngPutSpeedSteps takes the decoder object ID and a new number of speed steps as a parameter It sets the number of speed steps in the locomotive database to iSpeedSteps Note
50. ast one of said first and second client programs of at least one of said first and second commands with an indication that at least one of said first and second commands was unsuccessfully vali dated 148 The method of claim 142 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 149 The method of claim 148 wherein said validation is performed by an event driven dispatcher 150 The method of claim 148 wherein said first command and said third command are the same command and said second command and said fourth command are the same command 151 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b receiving said first command at said resident external controlling interface c queuing said first command in a command queue based on a non first in first out prioritization and d said resident external controlling interface selectively sending a second command representative of said first command to one of a plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said first an
51. atent Aug 7 2001 D D C D C D A Sheet 13 of 13 US 6 270 040 B1 INCREASE LOCO 1 BY 2 OPEN SWITCH 1 CLOSE SWITCH 1 OPEN SWITCH 1 DECREASE LOCO 2 BY 5 CLOSE SWITCH 6 TURN ON LIGHT 5 QUERY LOCO 3 INCREASE LOCO 2 BY 7 DECREASE LOCO 1 BY 2 MISC QUERY LOCO 2 QUERY SWITCH 1 TURN ON LIGHT 3 QUERY SWITCH 5 TURN ON LOCO 1 LIGHT QUERY ALL STOP LOCO 1 FIG 11 0 6 270 040 1 1 MODEL TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEM BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a system for controlling a model railroad Model railroads have traditionally been constructed with of a set of interconnected sections of train track electric switches between different sections of the train track and other electrically operated devices such as train engines and draw bridges Train engines receive their power to travel on the train track by electricity provided by a controller through the track itself The speed and direction of the train engine is controlled by the level and polarity respectively of the electrical power supplied to the train track The operator manually pushes buttons or pulls levers to cause the Switches or other electrically operated devices to function as desired Such model railroad sets are suitable for a single operator but unfortunately they lack the capability of adequately controlling multiple trains independently In addition such model railroad sets are no
52. ator and control information as to what general type of command they are For example an A command may be speed commands a B command may be switches a C command may be lights a D command may be query status etc As such the commands may be sorted based on their type indicator for assisting the determination as to whether or not any redundancies may be eliminated or otherwise reduced Normally a first in first out command queue provides a fair technique for the allocation of resources such as execu tion of commands by the digital command station but the present inventor determined that for slow real time model railroad devices such a command structure is not the most desirable In addition the present inventor realized that model railroads execute commands that are 1 not time sensitive 2 only somewhat time sensitive and 3 truly time sensitive Non time sensitive commands are merely query commands that inquire as to the status of certain devices Somewhat time sensitive commands are generally related to the appearance of devices and do not directly impact other devices such as turning on a light Truly time sensitive commands need to be executed in a timely fashion such as the speed of the locomotive or moving switches These truly time sensitive commands directly impact the perceived performance of the model railroad and therefore should be done in an out of order fashion In particular commands with a type indicative of a level
53. be more readily understood upon consideration of the following detailed description of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION The present invention overcomes the aforementioned drawbacks of the prior art in a first aspect by providing a system for operating a digitally controlled model railroad that includes transmitting a first command from a first client program to a resident external controlling interface through first communications transport A second command is transmitted from a second client program to the resident external controlling interface through a second communica tions transport The first command and the second command are received by the resident external controlling interface which queues the first and second commands The resident external controlling interface sends third and fourth com mands representative of the first and second commands respectively to a digital command station for execution on the digitally controlled model railroad Incorporating a communications transport between the multiple client program and the resident external controlling interface permits multiple operators of the model railroad at locations distant from the physical model railroad and each other In the environment of a model railroad club where the members want to simultaneously control devices of the same model railroad layout which preferably includes multiple trains o
54. ble devices it takes a substantial amount of time to completely program all the devices of the model railroad layout During the programming of the railroad layout the operator is sitting there not enjoying the operation of the railroad layout is frustrated loses operating enjoyment and will not desire to use digital programmable devices In addition to repro gram the railroad layout the operator must reprogram all of the devices of the entire railroad layout which takes sub stantial time Similarly to determine the state of all the devices of the railroad layout the operator must read the registers of each device likewise taking substantial time Moreover to reprogram merely a few bytes of a particular device requires the operator to previously know the state of the registers of the device which is obtainable by reading the registers of the device taking substantial time thereby still frustrating the operator The present inventor came to the realization that for the operation of a model railroad the anticipated state of the 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 40 individual devices of the railroad as programmed should be maintained during the use of the model railroad and between different uses of the model railroad By maintaining data representative of the current state of the device registers of the model railroad determinations may be made to efficiently program the devices When the user desi
55. clock OKamMiscPutClockTime Parameter List Type Range Direction Description iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 Logical port ID iDay int 0 6 In Day of week iHours int 0 23 In Hours iMinutes int 0 59 In Minutes 0 6 270 040 1 37 continued int 2 In Fast clock ratio Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts 2 Real time clock ratio Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamMiscPutClockTime takes the fast clock logical port he fast clock day the fast clock hours the fast clock minutes and the fast clock ratio as parameters It sets he fast clock using specified parameters OKamMiscGetInterface Version Parameter List Type pbsInterface Version iRatio Range BSTR 1 Direction Description Out Pointer to interface version string 1 Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for Empty string on error Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamMiscGetInterface Version takes a pointer to an interface version string as a parameter It sets the memory pointed to by pbsInterface Version to the interface version string The version string may contain multiple lines depending on the number of interfaces supported OKamMiscSaveData Parameter List NONE Return Value Type Range Description
56. comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b transmitting a second command from a second client program to said resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport c receiving said first command and said second com mand at said resident external controlling interface d said resident external controlling interface queuing said first and second commands and deleting one of said first and second commands if they are the same and e said resident external controlling interface sending a third command representative of said one of said first and second commands not deleted to a digital com mand station for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad 2 The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of a providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface that said first command was successfully validated against permis sible actions regarding the interaction between a plu rality of objects of said model railroad prior to validat ing said first command and b providing an acknowledgment to said second client program in response to receiving said second command by said resident external controlling interface that said second command was successfully validat
57. computer based commands thereby result ing in the collision Also this implementation provides a suitable security model to use for validation of user actions Referring to FIG 10 the client program 14 preferably includes a control panel 300 which provides a graphical interface such as a personal computer with software thereon or a dedicated hardware source for computerized control of the model railroad 302 The graphical interface may take the form of those illustrated in FIGS 5 9 or any other suitable command interface to provide control commands to the model railroad 302 Commands are issued by the client program 14 to the controlling interface using the control panel 300 The commands are received from the different 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 46 client programs 14 by the controlling interface 16 The 10 commands control the operation of the model railroad 302 such as switches direction and locomotive throttle Of particular importance is the throttle which is a state which persists for an indefinite period of time potentially resulting in collisions if not accurately monitored The controlling interface 16 accepts all of the commands and provides an acknowledgment to free up the communications transport for subsequent commands The acknowledgment may take the form of a response indicating that the command was executed thereby updating the control panel 300 The response may be subject
58. controlling interface together with state information from said database related to said first com mand 116 The method of claim 104 wherein said resident external controlling interface communicates in an asynchro nous manner with said first client program while commu nicating in a synchronous manner with said plurality of digital command stations 117 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b transmitting a second command from a second client program to a resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport c receiving said first command at said resident external controlling interface d receiving said second command at said resident exter nal controlling interface e comparing said first and second commands to one another to determine if the result of executing said first and second commands would result in a net state change of said model railroad that would also result from a single different command and the execution of one of said first and second commands would result in a net state change of said model railroad and f said resident external controlling interface sending said single different command to a digital command station for execution on said digitally controlled model rail road if a
59. d NAHM 4015 LV 104 IVNDIS ADOT NOLLV LS JOOTA NOILVLS MOOTE SV SHASIHS OSTV LV DNISSOWO ONITIO LLNOO JAMOL DONDIOO T HINI d NOLLV LS 3120 TIH 710018 OL SONVOLNH JO LYOHS 4015 OL NOLLV IS HOVA HOVO3lddV LSNW SNIVUL GACIAOUd ION SI TVNDIS LNV LSIG SLNIOd LV LE AGE 2 WOWIXVWUWONI 2 67 a Tal HONV ISId 44015 T 224 4015 LV 5 TVNDIS AWOH 4 TVNDIS INVISId SLOddSV TVN5IS TVOIdAL 3DO IH E 4015 p IVNDIS AWOH ONN SS HIOVISHO HO a NIVUL JO LYOHS 4015 OL 4 S1 5 OL DNIAOTIO4 DNIAOTIV THAV IdSIG AVIA lO8dSV HAISSIAHd SNOLLIONOO NIV ILWHO YAGNN US 6 270 040 B1 Sheet 6 of 13 Aug 7 2001 U S Patent Wld SLI AO THS V OL AV Tid NOVAL 1 qi OL WHO 9070 NVHL SSJI JONVLSISAY TVODLLOS TH OS 1 5 GOOD LSAW NIVAL JO STHHHA syoo1g INSOVIGV TIN ANO OL 40 NI AVAL DNINHdO WOW TANLVWAV
60. d by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Each bit represents a single function state Maximum for this decoder is given by KamAccGetFunctionMax Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccGetFunctionAll takes the decoder object ID and a pointer to a bit mask as parameters It sets each bit in the memory pointed to by piValue to the corresponding function state OKamAccPutFunction Parameter List Type Range IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Direction Description Decoder object ID iFunctionID int 0 31 2 In Function ID number iFunction int 3 In Function value 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum for this decoder is given by KamAccGetFunctionMax 3 Function active is boolean TRUE and inactive is boolean FALSE Return Value Type Range Descriptions iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number 0 6 270 040 1 29 continued see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccPutFunction takes the decoder object ID a function ID and a new function state as parameters It sets the specified accessory database function state to iFunction Note This command only changes the accessory database The data is not sent to the decoder until execution of the KamCmdCommand command OKamAccPutFunctionAll Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID
61. d decoder object ID as parameters It sets the decoder model type of the decoder at address IDecoderObjectID to the type specified by iModel OKamDecoderGetMaxAddress Parameter List Type Range Direction iModel int 1 In Decoder type ID Description piMaxAddress int 2 Out Maximum decoder address 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamDecoderGetMaxModels 2 Model dependent 0 returned on error Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 0 6 270 040 1 21 continued 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderGetMaxAddress takes a decoder type ID and a pointer to store the maximum address as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by piMaxAddress to the maximum address supported by the specified decoder OKamDecoderChangeOldNewAddr Parameter List Type Range OldObjID ong 1 In iNewAddr int 2 In Direction Description Old decoder object ID New decoder address plNewObjID long 1 Out New decoder object ID Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 1 127 for short locomotive addresses 1 10239 for ong locomotive decoders 0 511 for accessory decoders Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderChangeOldNewAddr takes an old decoder object ID and a new decoder address as parameters It moves the specified locomotive or access
62. d second client programs while communicating in a synchronous manner with said digital command station 72 The method of claim 70 wherein said first communi cations transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 73 The method of claim 70 wherein said first communi cations transport and said second communications transport are DCOM interfaces 74 The method of claim 70 wherein said first client program and said resident external controlling interface are operating on the same computer 75 The method of claim 70 wherein said first client program said second client program and said resident external controlling interface are all operating on different computers 76 The method of claim 70 further comprising the step of providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface that said first command was successfully validated against permissible actions regarding the interaction between a plurality of objects of said model railroad prior to validating said first command 77 The method of claim 76 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station 78 The method of claim 77 further comprising the step of comparing said command station responses to previous commands sent to said digital command statio
63. d second commands and said prioritization 152 The method of claim 151 further comprising the steps of a transmitting a third command from a second client program to said resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport 0 6 270 040 1 65 b receiving said third command at said resident external controlling interface c queuing said third command in said command queue based on a non first in first out prioritization and d said resident external controlling interface selectively sending a fourth command representative of said third command to one of said plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said third and fourth commands and said prioritization 153 The method of claim 152 wherein said first commu nications transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 154 The method of claim 152 wherein said first commu nications transport and said second communications trans port are DCOM interfaces 155 The method of claim 151 wherein said first client program and said resident external controlling interface are operating on the same computer 156 The method of claim 152 wherein said first client program said second client program and said resident external controlling interface are all operating on different computers 157 The method of claim 151 furth
64. d takes the decoder object ID as a parameter It sends all state changes from the server database to the specified locomotive or accessory decoder A Cab Control Commands This section describes commands that control the cabs attached to a command station OKamCabGetMessage Parameter List Type iCabAddress in Range Direction 1 65535 1 In Description Cab address pbsMsg BSTR 2 Out Cab message string 1 Maximum value is command station dependent 2 Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for C Empty string on error Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCabGetMessage takes a cab address and a pointer to a message string as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pbsMsg to the present cab message OKamCabPutMessage Parameter List Type Range iCabAddress int 1 In Direction Cab address Description bsMsg BSTR 2 Out Cab message string 1 Maximum value is command station dependent 2 Exact parameter type depends on language It is LPCSTR for Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 36 continued KamCabPutMessage takes a cab address and a BSTR as parameters It sets the cab message to bsMsg OKamCabGe
65. d the command This results in better overall system response In addition to simply removing redundant commands from the command queue the present inventor further determined that particular sequences of commands in the command queue result in a net state change to the model railroad which may be provided to the digital command station as a single command For example if a command in the command queue increases the speed of the locomotive 0 6 270 040 1 49 by 5 units another command in the command queue decreases the speed of the locomotive by 3 units the two commands may be replaced by a single command that increases the speed of the locomotive by 2 units In this manner a reduction in the number of commands in the command queue is accomplished while at the same time effectuating the net result of the commands This results in a reduction in the depth of the queue by removing elements from the queue thereby potentially avoiding overflow con ditions In addition this decreases the time required to actually program the device to the net state thereby increas ing user satisfaction With the potential of a large number of commands in the command queue taking several minutes or more to execute the present inventor further determined that a priority based queue system should be implemented Referring to FIG 11 the command queue structure may include a stack of com mands to be executed Each of the commands may include type indic
66. decoders and command stations for a substantial time thereby preventing the enjoyment of the model railroad for other users In order to implement a networked selective updating technique the present inventor determined that it is desirable to implement both a write cache and a read cache The write cache contains those commands yet to be programmed by the digital command stations 18 Valid commands from each user are passed to a queue in the write cache In the event of multiple commands from multiple users depending on user permissions and security or the same user for the same event or action the write cache will concatenate the two commands into a single command to be programmed by the digital command stations 18 In the event of multiple com mands from multiple users or the same user for different events or actions the write cache will concatenate the two commands into a single command to be programmed by the digital command stations 18 The write cache may forward either of the commands such as the last received command to the digital command station The users are updated with the actual command programmed by the digital command station as necessary The read cache contains the state of the different devices of the model railroad After a command has been written to a digital device and properly acknowledged if necessary the read cache is updated with the current state of the model railroad In addition the read cache 18 updated w
67. ded and on the spacing of open stations those in which an operator is on duty If as is usually the case it is many miles to the next block station and thus trains must be equally spaced Nevertheless manual block does afford a high degree of safety The block signaling which does the most for increasing line capacity is automatic block signals ABS in which the signals are controlled by the trains themselves The presence or absence of a train is determined by a track circuit Invented by Dr William Robinson in 1872 the track cir cuit s key feature is that it is fail safe As can be seen in FIG 6 if the battery or any wire connection fails or a rail is broken the relay can t pick up and a clear signal will not be displayed The track circuit is also an example of what is designated in railway signaling practice as a vital circuit one which can give an unsafe indication if some of its components mal function in certain ways The track circuit is fail safe but it could still give a false clear indication should its relay stick in the closed or picked up position Vital circuit relays therefore are built to very stringent standards they are large devices rely on gravity no springs to drop their armature and use special non loading contacts which will not stick together if hit by a large surge of current such as nearby lightning Getting a track circuit to be absolutely reliable is not a simple matter The electrical leakage b
68. derGetMaxSpeed Parameter List Type Range Direction IDecoderObjectID long 1 In piSpeedStep int 2 Out Description Decoder object ID Pointer to max speed step 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 14 28 56 or 128 for locomotive decoders 0 for accessory decoders Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderGetMaxSpeed takes a decoder object ID and a pointer to the maximum supported speed step as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by piSpeedStep to the maximum speed step supported by the decoder A Commands to control locomotive decoders This section describes the commands that control locomotive decoders These commands control things such as locomotive speed and direction For efficiency a copy of all the engine variables such speed is stored in the server Commands such as KamEngGetSpeed communicate only with the server not the actual decoder You should first make any changes to the server copy of the engine variables You can send all changes to the engine using the KamCmdCommand command OKamEngGetSpeed Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID IpSpeed int 2 Out Pointer to locomotive speed IpDirection int 3 Out Pointer to locomotive direction 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Speed range is dependent
69. down the transmission of commands to the digital command station and incorporating a large buffer the present inventor came to the realization that a queue man agement system should be incorporated within the interface 16 to facilitate apparent increased responsiveness of the digital command station to the user The particular imple mentation of a command queue is based on a further realization that many of the commands to operate a model railroad are 1 85 in nature which is highly unusual for a computer based queue system In other words if some of the commands in the command queue are never actually executed are deleted from the command queue or otherwise simply changed the operation of the model railroad still functions properly Normally a queuing system inherently requires that all commands are executed in some manner at some point in time even if somewhat delayed Initially the present inventor came to the realization that when multiple users are attempting to control the same model railroad each of them may provide the same com 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 48 mand to the model railroad In this event the digital com mand station would receive both commands from the inter face 16 process both commands transmit both commands to the model railroad receive both responses therefrom typically and provide two acknowledgments to the inter face 16 In a system where the executi
70. ds to control accessory decoders This section describes the commands that control accessory decoders These commands control things such as accessory decoder activation state For efficiency a copy of all the engine variables such speed is stored in the server Commands such as KamAccGetFunction communicate only with the server not the actual decoder You should first make any changes to the server copy of the engine variables You can send all changes to the engine using the KamCmdCommand command OKamAccGetFunction Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iFunctionID int 0 31 2 In Function ID number IpFunction int 3 Out Pointer to function value 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum for this decoder is given by KamAccGetFunctionMax 3 Function active is boolean TRUE and inactive is boolean FALSE Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccGetFunction takes the decoder object ID a function ID and a pointer to the location to store the specified function state as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by lpFunction to the specified function state OKamAccGetFunctionAll Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID piValue int 2 Out Function bit mask 1 Opaque object ID handle returne
71. ds to the same or different trains thereby causing a collision In such a system each user is not aware of the intent and actions of other users aside from any feedback that may be displayed on their terminal Unfortunately the feedback to their dispatcher console may be delayed as the execution of commands issued by one or more users may take several seconds to several minutes to be executed One potential solution to the dilemma of managing sev eral users attempt to simultaneously control a single model railroad layout is to develop a software program that is operating on the server which observes what is occurring In the event that the software program determines that a collision is imminent a stop command is issued to the train overriding all other commands to avoid such a collision However once the collision is avoided the user may if desired override such a command thereby restarting the train and causing a collision Accordingly a software pro gram that merely oversees the operation of track apart from the validation of commands to avoid imminent collisions is not a suitable solution for operating a model railroad in a multi user distributed environment The present inventor determined that prior validation is important because of the delay in executing commands on the model railroad and the potential for conflicting commands In addition a hardware throttle directly connected to the model railroad layout may override all such
72. e locking is used to insure that nothing can be changed to reduce the route s speed capability from the time the train approaching it is admitted to enter until it has cleared the last switch Additional refinements to the basic system to speed up handling trains in rapid sequence include sectional route locking which unlocks portions of the route as soon as the train has cleared so that other routes can be set up promptly Interlocking signals also function as block signals to provide rear end protection In addition at isolated crossings at grade an automatic interlocking can respond to the approach of a train by clearing the route if there are no opposing movements cleared or in progress Automatic interlocking returns everything to stop after the train has passed As can be observed the movement of multiple trains among the track potentially involves a series of intercon nected activities and decisions which must be performed by a controller such as a dispatcher In essence for a railroad the dispatcher controls the operation of the trains and permissions may be set by computer control thereby con trolling the railroad Unfortunately if the dispatcher fails to obey the rules as put in place traffic collisions may occur 0 6 270 040 1 45 In the context of a model railroad the controller is operating a model railroad layout including an extensive amount of track several locomotives trains and additional functionality such
73. e device The predetermination of the state of each register of a particular device avoids the time consuming activity of receiving a significant number of errors and thus construct ing the caches It is to be noted that the actual read and write cache may be any suitable type of data structure Many model railroad systems include computer interfaces to attempt to mimic or otherwise emulate the operation of actual full scale railroads FIG 4 illustrates the organization of train dispatching by timetable and train order T amp TO techniques Many of the rules governing T amp TO operation are related to the superiority of trains which principally is which train will take siding at the meeting point Any misinterpretation of these rules can be the source of either hazard or delay For example misinterpreting the rules may result in one train colliding with another train For trains following each other T amp TO operation must rely upon time spacing and flag protection to keep each train a sufficient distance apart For example a train may not leave a station less than five minutes after the preceding train has departed Unfortunately there is no assurance that such spacing will be retained as the trains move along the line so the flagman rear brakeman of a train slowing down or stopping will light and throw off a five minute red flare which may not be passed by the next train while lit If a train has to stop a flagman trots back along th
74. e line with a red flag or lantern a sufficient distance to protect the train and remains there until the train is ready to move at which time he is called back to the train flare and two track torpedoes provide protection as the flagman scrambles back and the train resumes speed While this type of system works it depends upon a series of human activities It is perfectly possible to operate a railroad safely without signals The purpose of signal systems is not so much to increase safety as it is to step up the efficiency and capacity of the line in handling traffic Nevertheless it s convenient to discuss signal system principals in terms of three types of collisions that signals are designed to prevent namely rear end side on and head on 0 6 270 040 1 43 Block signal systems prevent a train from ramming the train ahead of it by dividing the main line into segments otherwise known as blocks and allowing only one train in block at a time with block signals indicating whether or not the block ahead is occupied In many blocks the signals are set by a human operator Before clearing the signal he must verify that any train which has previously entered the block is now clear of it a written record is kept of the status of each block and a prescribed procedure is used in com municating with the next operator The degree to which a block frees up operation depends on whether distant signals as shown in FIG 5 are provi
75. e speed of a train or switching a switch The software issues a command locally or through a network such as the internet to a digital command station at the railroad set which executes the command The protocol used by the software is based on Cobra from Open Management Group where the software issues a command to a commu nication interface and awaits confirmation that the command was executed by the digital command station When the software receives confirmation that the command executed the software program sends the next command through the communication interface to the digital command station In other words the technique used by the software to control the model railroad is analogous to an inexpensive printer where commands are sequentially issued to the printer after the previous command has been executed Unfortunately it has been observed that the response of the model railroad to the operator appears slow especially over a distributed network such as the internet One technique to decrease the response time is to use high speed network connections but unfortunately such connections are expensive What is desired therefore is a system for controlling a model railroad that effectively provides a high speed con nection without the additional expense associated therewith 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 2 The foregoing and other objectives features and advan tages of the invention will
76. ed The asynchronous receipt of commands together with a synchronous manner of validation and execution of com mands from the multiple control panels 300 permits a simplified dispatcher controller 310 to be used together with a minimization of computer resources such as com ports In essence commands are managed independently from the client program 14 Likewise a centralized dispatcher con troller 310 working in an off line mode increases the likelihood that a series of commands that are executed will not be conflicting resulting in an error This permits multiple model railroad enthusiasts to control the same model rail road in a safe and efficient manner Such concerns regarding the interrelationships between multiple dispatchers does not occur in a dedicated non distributed environment When the command is received or validated all of the control panels 300 of the client programs 14 may likewise be updated to reflect the change Alternatively the controlling interface 16 may accept the command validate it quickly by the dis patcher controller and provide an acknowledgment to the client program 14 In this manner the client program 14 will not require updating if the command is not valid In a likewise manner when a command is valid the control panel 300 of all client programs 14 should be updated to show the status of the model railroad 302 A manual throttle 320 may likewise provide control over devices such as the locom
77. ed will be avoided In this manner other commands that will change the state of the model railroad may be executed in a more timely manner thereby increasing user satisfaction Also the necessary size of the command queue on the computer is reduced After further consideration of the particular environment of a model railroad the present inventor also determined that many command sequences in the command queue result in no net state change to the model railroad and thus should likewise be removed from the command queue For example a command in the command queue to increase the speed of the locomotive followed by a command in the command queue to reduce the speed of the locomotive to the initial speed results in no net state change to the model railroad Any perceived increase and decrease of the loco motive would merely be the result of the time differential It is to be understood that the comparison may be between any two or more commands Another example may include a command to open a switch followed by a command to close a switch which likewise results in no net state change to the model railroad Accordingly it is desirable to eliminate commands from the command queue resulting in a net total state change of zero This results in a reduction in the depth of the queue by removing elements from the queue thereby potentially avoiding overflow conditions increasing user satisfaction and decreasing the probability that the user will resen
78. ed against permissible actions regarding the interaction between a plurality of objects of said model railroad prior to validating said second command 3 The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of selectively sending said third command to one of a plurality of digital command stations 0 6 270 040 1 51 4 The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said digital command station and validating said responses regarding said interaction 5 The method of claim 1 wherein said first and second commands relate to the speed of locomotives 6 The method of claim 2 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to at least one of said first and second client programs of at least one of said first and second commands with an indication that at least one of said first and second commands was unsuccessfully validated 7 The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 8 The method of claim 7 wherein said validation is performed by an event driven dispatcher 9 The method of claim 7 wherein said one of said first and second command and said third command are the same command 1
79. ee KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccDelFeedbackAIl takes a decoder object ID and node name string as parameters It deletes interest in all functions by the method given by the node name string bsAccNode bsAccNode identifies the server application and method to call if the function changes state Its format is Server App Method where Server is the server name App is the application name and Method is the method name A Commands to control the command station This section describes the commands that control the command station These commands do things such as controlling command station power The steps to control a given command station vary depending on the type of command station OKamOprPutTurnOnStation Parameter List Type Range Direction iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 In 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag T iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg OKamOprPutTurnOnStation takes a logical port ID as a parameter It performs the steps necessary to turn on the command station This command performs a combination of other commands such as KamOprPutStartStation KamOprPutClearStation and KamOprPutPowerOn OKamOprPutStartStation Description Logical port ID Parameter List Type Range Direction Description iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 In Logical port ID 1 Maximum value for this server given b
80. en by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamOprPutPowerOn takes a logical port ID as a parameter It performs the steps necessary to apply power to the track OKamOprPutPowerOff Parameter List Type Range Direction Description iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 In Logical port ID 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamOprPutPowerOff takes a logical port ID as a parameter It performs the steps necessary to remove power from the track OKamOprPutHardReset Parameter List Type Range Direction iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 In 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamOprPutHardReset takes a logical port ID as a parameter It performs the steps necessary to perform a hard reset of the command station OKamOprPutEmergencyStop Parameter List Type Range Direction iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error numbe
81. er comprising the step of providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface prior to validating said first command against permissible actions regarding the interac tion between a plurality of objects of said model railroad 158 The method of claim 157 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station and validating said responses regarding said interaction 159 The method of claim 158 further comprising the step of comparing said command station responses to previous commands sent to said digital command station to determine which said previous commands it corresponds with 160 The method of claim 157 further comprising the step of updating validation of said first command based on data received from said digital command stations 161 The method of claim 160 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon command station responses rep resentative of said state of said digitally controlled model railroad 162 The method of claim 151 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface together with state infor
82. etween the rails is considerable and varies greatly with the seasons of the year and the weather The joints and bolted rail track are by passed with bond wire to assure low resistance at all times but the total resistance still varies It is lower for example when cold weather shrinks the rails and they pull tightly on the track bolts or when hot weather expands to force the ends tightly together Battery voltage is typically limited to one or two volts requiring a fairly sensitive relay Despite this the direct current track circuit can be adjusted to do an excellent job and false clears are extremely rare The principal improvement in the basic circuit has been to use slowly pulsed DC so that the relay drops out and must be picked up again continually when a block is unoccupied This allows the use of a more sensitive relay which will detect a train but additionally work in track circuits twice as long before leakage between the rails begins to threaten reliable relay operation Referring to FIGS 7A and 7B the situations determining the minimum block length for the standard two block three indication ABS system Since the train may stop with its rear car just inside the rear boundary of a block a following train will first receive warning just one block length away No allowance may be made for how far the signal indication may be seen by the engineer Swivel block must be as long as the longest stopping distance for any train on the rou
83. ex takes the controller ID logical port and a pointer to the location to store the maximum index It sets the memory pointed to by pilndex to the specified command station maximum miscellaneous data index OKamMiscMaxControllerID Parameter List Type Range Direction Description piMaxControllerID int 1 65535 1 Out Maximum controller type ID 1 See FIG 6 Controller ID to controller name mapping for a list of controller ID values 0 returned error Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamMiscMaxControllerID takes a pointer to the maximum controller ID as a parameter It sets the memory pointed to by piMaxControllerID to the maximum controller type ID OKamMiscGetControllerFacilty Parameter List Type Range Direction iControllerID int 1 65535 1 In Description Command station 0 6 270 040 1 39 continued type ID Pointer to command station facility mask 1 See FIG 6 Controller ID to controller name mapping for values Maximum value for this server is given by KamMiscMaxControllerID 2 0 CMDSDTA PRGMODE ADDR 1 CMDSDTA PRGMODE REG 2 CMDSDTA PRGMODE PAGE 3 CMDSDTA PRGMODE DIR 4 CMDSDTA PRGMODE FLYSHT 5 CMDSDTA PRGMODE FLYLNG 6 Reserved 7 Reserved 8 Reserved 9 Reserved 0 CMDSDTA SUPPORT CONSIST 1 CMDSDTA SUPPORT LONG 2 CMDSDTA SUPPORT FEED 3 CMDSDTA SUPPORT 2TRK 4 C
84. ference to the Train ServerT Interface object Dim EngCmd As New EngComlfc Engine Commander uses the term Ports Devices and Controllers Ports These are logical ids where Decoders are assigned to Train ServerT Interface supports a limited number of logical ports You can also think of ports as mapping to a command station type This allows you to move decoders between command station without losing any information about the decoder Devices gt These are communications channels 11 continued configured in your computer You may have a single device com1 or multiple devices 1 COMS LPT1 Other You are required to map a port to a device to access a command station Devices start from ID 0 max id FYI devices do not necessarily have to be serial channel Always check the name of the device before you use it as well as the maximum number of devices supported The Command EngCmd KamPortGetMaxPhysical IMaxPhysical Serial IParallel provides means that IMaxPhysical ISerial IParallel Other Controller These are command the command station like LENZ Digitrax Northcoast EasyDCC Marklin It is recommend that you check the command station ID before you use it All commands return an error status If the error value is non zero then the other return arguments are invalid In general non zero errors means command was not executed To get the error message
85. for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said first and third commands and b sending a fourth command representative of said second command to one of said plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally con trolled model railroad based upon information con tained within at least one of said second and fourth commands 134 The method of claim 129 wherein said first commu nications transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 135 The method of claim 132 wherein said first commu nications transport and said second communications trans port are DCOM interfaces 136 The method of claim 129 wherein said first client program and said first processor are operating on the same computer 137 The method of claim 132 wherein said first client program said second client program and said first processor are all operating on different computers 138 The method of claim 129 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station 139 The method of claim 129 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 140 The method
86. from and write to particular registers of the model railroad This avoids the exceptionally long error out when attempting to access invalid registers An in use representation of a register indicates that the particular register is valid for both a read and a write operation This permits the system to read from and write to particular registers of the model railroad This assists in accessing valid registers where the response time is rela tively fast A read error unknown state representation of a register indicates that each time an attempt to read a particular register results in an error A read dirty representation of a register indicates that the data in the read cache has not been validated by reading its valid from the decoder If both the read error and the read dirty representations are clear then a valid read from the read cache may be performed A read dirty representation may be cleared by a successful write operation if desired A read only representation indicates that the register may not be written to If this flag is set then a write error may not occur A write error unknown state representation of a register Indicates that each time an attempt to write to a particular register results in an error 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 42 A write dirty representation of a register indicates that the data in the write cache has not been written to the decoder yet For example when
87. g command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station and validating said responses regarding said interaction 206 The method of claim 205 further comprising the step of comparing said command station responses to previous commandis sent to said digital command station to determine which said previous commands it corresponds with 207 The method of claim 204 further comprising the step of updating validation of said first command based on data received from said digital command stations 208 The method of claim 207 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon command station responses rep resentative of said state of said digitally controlled model railroad 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 209 The method of claim 208 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface together with state information from said database related to said first com mand 210 The method of claim 204 wherein said resident external controlling interface communicates in an asynchro nous manner with said first client program while commu nicating in synchronous manner with said plurality of digital command stations 211
88. g the step of providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface that said first command was successfully validated against permissible actions regarding the interaction between a plurality of objects of said model railroad prior to validating said first command 30 The method of claim 29 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station 31 The method of claim 30 further comprising the step of comparing said command station responses to previous commands sent to said digital command station to determine which said previous commands it corresponds with 32 The method of claim 31 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 33 The method of claim 32 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface together with state information from said database related to said first com mand 34 The method of claim 23 wherein said validation is performed by an event driven dispatcher 35 A method of ope
89. g the train track There are several different manufacturers of digital command stations each of which has a different set of input commands so each external device is designed for a par ticular digital command station In this manner the system is compatible with different digital command stations The digital command stations 18 of the external devices 116 provide a response to the external device control logic 114 0 6 270 040 1 7 which is checked for validity and identified as to which prior command it corresponds to so that the controller database storage 112 may be updated properly The process of trans mitting commands to and receiving responses from the external devices 116 is slow The synchronous command processor 110 is notified of the results from the external control logic 114 and if appropriate forwards the results to the command queue 104 The asynchronous response processor 100 clears the results from the command queue 104 and updates the local database storage 102 and sends an asynchronous response to the client program 14 if needed The response updates the client program 14 of the actual state of the railroad track devices if changed and provides an error message to the client program 14 if the devices actual state was previously improperly reported or a command did not execute properly The use of two separate database storages each of which is substantially a mirror image of the other provides a performa
90. gnates a command to be executed by one or more of the digital command stations 18 the software may determine which commands need to be sent to one or more of the digital command stations 18 of the model railroad By only updating those registers of particular devices that are necessary to imple ment the commands of a particular user the time necessary to program the railroad layout is substantially reduced For example if the command would duplicate the current state of the device then no command needs to be forwarded to the digital command stations 18 This prevents redundantly programming the devices of the model railroad thereby freeing up the operation of the model railroad for other activities Unlike a single user single railroad environment the sys tem of the present invention may encounter conflicting commands that attempt to write to and read from the devices of the model railroad For example the conflicting com mands may inadvertently program the same device in an inappropriate manner such as the locomotive to speed up to maximum and the locomotive to stop In addition a user that desires to read the status of the entire model railroad layout will monopolize the digital decoders and command stations for a substantial time such as up to two hours thereby preventing the enjoyment of the model railroad for the other users Also a user that programs an extensive number of devices will likewise monopolize the digital
91. hird command are the same command and said second command and said fourth com mand are the same command 57 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b receiving said first command at said resident external controlling interface c comparing said first command against other com mands in a command queue to determine if the result of executing said first command and said other commands would result in no net state change of said model railroad and the execution of said first command would result in a net state change of said model railroad and d said resident external controlling interface selectively sending a second command representative of said first command to one of a plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model 5 15 25 30 35 45 50 55 60 65 56 railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said first and second commands 58 The method of claim 57 further comprising the steps of a transmitting a third command from a second client program to said resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport b receiving said third command at said resident external controlling interface c comparing said third comma
92. iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamMiscSaveData takes no parameters It saves all server data to permanent storage This command is run automatically whenever the server stops running Demo versions of the program cannot save data and this command will return an error in that case OKamMiscGetControllerName Type Range Direction Description Parameter List Type Range Direction Description iControllerID int 1 65535 1 In Command station type ID pbsName BSTR 2 Out Command station type name 1 See FIG 6 Controller ID to controller name mapping for values Maximum value for this server is given by KamMiscMaxControllerID 2 Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for Empty string on error Return Value Range Description bsName BSTR 1 Command station type name Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamMiscGetControllerName takes a command station type ID and a pointer to a type name string as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pbsName to the command station type name OKamMiscGetControllerNameAtPort Parameter List Type Range Direction iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 In pbsName BSTR 2 Out Description Logical port ID Command station type name 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogP
93. iValue int 2 In Pointer to function state array 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Each bit represents a single function state Maximum for this decoder is given by KamAccGetFunctionMax Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccPutFunctionAll takes the decoder object ID and a bit mask as parameters It sets all decoder function enable states to match the state bits in iValue The possible enable states are TRUE and FALSE The data is not sent to the decoder until execution of the KamCmdCommand command OKamAccGetFunctionMax Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID piMaxFunction int 0 31 2 Out Pointer to maximum function number 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum far this decoder is given by KamAccGetFunctionMax Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccGetFunctionMax takes a decoder object ID and pointer to the maximum function number as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by piMaxFunction to the maximum possible function number for the specified decoder OKamAccGetName Parameter List Type Range IDecoderObjectID long 1 In pbsAccNameString BSTR 2 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderP
94. ilroad is free to establish the simplest and most easily maintained system of aspects and indications that will keep traffic moving safely and meet any special requirements due to geography traffic pattern or equipment Aspects such as flashing yellow for approach medium for example may be used to provide an extra indication without an extra signal head This is safe because a stuck flasher will result in either a steady yellow approach or a more restrictive light out aspect In addition there are provisions for interlocking so the trains may branch from one track to another To take care of junctions where trains are diverted from one route to another the signals must control train speed The train traveling straight through must be able to travel at full speed Diverging routes will require some limit depend ing on the turnout members and the track curvature and the signals must control train speed to match One approach is to have signals indicate which route has been set up and cleared for the train In the American approach of speed signaling in which the signal indicates not where the train is going but rather what speed is allowed through the interlocking If this is less than normal speed distant signals must also give warning so the train can be brought down to the speed in time FIGS 9A and 9B show typical signal aspects and indications as they would appear to an engineer Once a route is established and the signal cleared rout
95. information that you determine from the control codes is that information is sent S and a response is 1 received R iDebugMode 130 iValue Value Text Display value for reference iError EngCmd KamPortPutConfig iLogicalPort 7 iDebug iValue setting PORT DEBUG Now map the Logical Port Physical device Command station and Controller iError EngCmd KamPortPutMapController iLogicalPort iController iComPort iError EngCmd KamCmdConnect iLogicalPort iError EngCmd KamOprPutTurnOnStation iLogicalPort If iError Then SetButtonState False Else SetButtonState True End If SetError iError Displays the error message and error number End Sub Vk sk s koc sk sk ake ake ee ck ck oo ake oe oe koe Set the address button Aak ak ak ake ake ake ak ak 2 RO R R ck Oo ke Private Sub DCCAddr Click Dim iAddr iStatus As Integer All addresses must be match to a logical port to operate iDecoderType 1 Set the decoder type to an NMRA baseline decoder 1 8 reg iDecoderClass 1 Set the decoder class to Engine decoder there are only two classes of decoders Engine and Accessory Once we make a connection we use the IEngineObject as the reference object to send control information If Address Text 1 Then iStatus EngCmd KamDecoderPutAdd Address Text iLogicalPort iLogicalPort 0 iDecoderType IEngineObject SetError iStatus If IEngineObject Then Com
96. ing and track capacity FIG 8 is an illustration of different types of signals FIG 9A and 9B are illustrations of speed signaling in approach to a junction FIG 10 is a further embodiment of the system including dispatcher FIG 11 is an exemplary embodiment of a command queue DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring to FIG 1 model train control system 10 includes communications transport 12 interconnecting a client program 14 and a resident external controlling inter face 16 The client program 14 executes on the model railroad operator s computer and may include any suitable system to permit the operator to provide desired commands 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 to the resident external controlling interface 16 For example the client program 14 may include a graphical interface representative of the model railroad layout where the operator issues commands to the model railroad by making changes to the graphical interface The client pro gram 14 also defines set of Application Programming Interfaces API s described in detail later which the opera tor accesses using the graphical interface or other programs such as Visual Basic Java or browser based applica tions There may be multiple client programs interconnected with the resident external controlling interface 16 so that multiple remote operators may simultaneously provide con trol
97. irection Description DecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 18 continued pMinRegister int 2 Out Pointer to min CV register number 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Normally 1 1024 0 on error or if decoder does not support CVs Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCVGetMinRegister takes a decoder object ID as a parameter It sets the memory pointed to by pMinRegister to the minimum possible CV register number for the specified decoder OKamCVGetMaxRegister Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID pMaxRegister int 2 Out Pointer to max CV register number 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Normally 1 1024 0 on error or if decoder does not support CVs Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCVGetMaxRegister takes a decoder object ID as parameter It sets the memory pointed to by pMaxRegister to the maximum possible CV register number for the specified decoder A Commands to program configuration variables This section describes the commands read and write decoder configuration variables CVs You should initially transfer a copy of the dec
98. iscGetErrorMsg KamPortGetConfig takes a logical port ID configuration index and a pointer to a configuration value as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by piValue to the specified configuration value OKamPortGetName Parameter List Type iPhysicalPortID int Range Direction 1 65535 1 In number Physical port name Description Physical port pbsPortName BSTR 2 Out 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxPhysical 2 Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for C Empty string on error Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamPortGetName takes a physical port ID number and a pointer to a port name string as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pbsPortName to the physical port name such as COMM1 OKamPortPutMapController Parameter List Type iLogicalPortID int iControllerID int Range Direction 1 65535 1 In 1 65535 2 In type ID 1 65535 3 In port ID 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts 2 See FIG 6 Controller ID to controller name mapping for values Maximum value for this server is given by KamMiscMaxControllerID 3 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxPhysical Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamPortPutMapCon
99. ith the state of the model railroad when the registers of the devices of the model railroad are read Prior to sending the commands to be executed by the digital command stations 18 the data in the write cache is compared against the data in the read cache In the event that the data in the read cache indicates that the data in the write cache does not need to be programmed the command is discarded In contrast if the data in the read cache indicates that the data in the write cache needs to be programmed then the command is pro 0 6 270 040 1 41 grammed by the digital command station After program ming the command by the digital command station the read cache is updated to reflect the change in the model railroad As becomes apparent the use of a write cache and a read cache permits a decrease in the number of registers that need to be programmed thus speeding up the apparent operation of the model railroad to the operator The present inventor further determined that errors in the processing of the commands by the railroad and the initial unknown state of the model railroad should be taken into account for a robust system In the event that an error is received in response to an attempt to program or read a device then the state of the relevant data of the read cache is marked as unknown The unknown state merely indicates that the state of the register has some ambiguity associated therewith The unknown state may be removed b
100. laim 224 further comprising the step of said second process queuing a plurality of commands received 226 The method of claim 223 further comprising the steps of a transmitting a second command from a second client program to said first processor through a second com munications transport b receiving said second command at said first processor and c said first processor selectively providing an acknowl edgment to said second client program through said second communications transport indicating that said second command has been executed if not said removed 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 72 227 The method of claim 226 further comprising the steps of a sending a third command representative of said first command to one of a plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said first and third commands if not said removed and b sending a fourth command representative of said second command to one of said plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally con trolled model railroad based upon information con tained within at least one of said second and fourth commands if not said removed 228 The method of claim 223 wherein said first commu nications transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 229 The method of claim 226 wherein said first commu nicati
101. le decoder CV using the specified value as source data OKamProgramReadDecoderToDataBase Parameter List Type Range Direction IDecoderObjectID long 1 In 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd Description Decoder object ID 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 20 continued Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamProgramReadDecoderToDataBase takes the decoder object ID as a parameter It reads all enabled CV values from the decoder and stores them in the server database OKamProgramDecoderFromDataBase Parameter List Type Range Direction IDecoderObjectID long 1 In 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by Description Decoder object ID KamDecoderPutAdd Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamProgramDecoderFromDataBase takes the decoder object ID as a parameter It programs writes all enabled decoder CV values using the server copy of the CVs as source data A Commands to control all decoder types This section describes the commands that all decoder types These commands do things such getting the maximum address a given type of decoder supports adding decoders to the database etc OKamDecoderGetMaxModels Parameter List Type Range Direction Description piMaxMode
102. ls int 1 Out Pointer to Max model ID 1 Normally 1 65535 0 on error Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderGetMaxModels takes no parameters It sets the memory pointed to by piMaxModels to the maximum decoder type ID OKamDecoderGetModelName Parameter List Type Direction Range Description iModel int 1 65535 1 In Decoder type ID pbsModelName BSTR 2 Out Decoder name string 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamDecoderGetMaxModels 2 Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for C Empty string on error Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamPortGetModelName takes a decoder type ID and a pointer to a string as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pbsModelName to a BSTR containing the decoder name OKamDecoderSetModelToObj Parameter List Type iModel int 1 In Range Direction Decoder model ID Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamDecoderGetMaxModels 2 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderSetModelToObj takes a decoder ID an
103. ly controlled model railroad based upon said prioritization 143 The method of claim 142 further comprising the steps of a providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface that said first command was successfully validated against permis sible actions regarding the interaction between a plu rality of objects of said model railroad prior to validat ing said first command and b providing an acknowledgment to said second client program in response to receiving said second command by said resident external controlling interface that said second command was successfully validated against permissible actions regarding the interaction between a plurality of objects of said model railroad prior to validating said second command 144 The method of claim 142 further comprising the steps of selectively sending said third command to one of a plurality of digital command stations 145 The method of claim 142 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said digital command station and validating said responses regarding said interaction 146 The method of claim 142 wherein said first and second commands relate to the speed of locomotives 147 The method of claim 143 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to at le
104. mEngGetConsistMax takes the decoder object ID and a pointer to a location to store the maximum consist as parameters It sets the location pointed to by piMaxConsist to the maximum number of locomotives that can but placed in a command station controlled consist Note that this command is designed for command station consisting CV consisting is handled using the CV commands OKamEngPutConsistParent Parameter List Type Range IDCCParentObjID long 1 In Direction Description Parent decoder object ID iDCCAliasAddr int 2 In Alias decoder address 1 Opaque object ID handle returned KamDecoderPutAdd 2 1 127 for short locomotive addresses 1 10239 for long locomotive decoders Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngPutConsistParent takes the parent object ID and an alias address as parameters It makes the decoder specified by IDCCParentObjID the consist parent referred to by iDCCAliasAddr Note that this command is designed for command station consisting CV consisting is handled using the CV commands If a new parent is defined for a consist the old parent becomes a child in the consist To delete a parent in a consist without deleting the consist you must add a new parent then delete the old parent using KamEngPutConsistRemoveObj OKamEngPutConsistChild Parameter List Type Range Direction DCCPa
105. mand Enabled True turn on the control send button Throttle Enabled True Turn on the throttle Else 0 6 270 040 1 15 continued MsgBox Address not set check error message End If Else MsgBox Address must be greater then 0 and less then 128 End If End Sub sk sk 5k sk Disconenct button ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ake ak ak fe Private Sub Disconnect _Click Dim iError As Integer iError EngCmd KamCmdDisConnect iLogicalPort SetError iError SetButtonState False End Sub ok foe Display error message Vk sk sk sk sk ak ak ak ak ak ak ake ak os fe fe ok ck fe ok ck oe ce e Private Sub SetError iError As Integer Dim szError As String Dim iStatus This shows how to retrieve a sample error message from the interface for the status received iStatus EngCmd KamMiscGetErrorMsg iError szError ErrorMsg Caption szError Result Caption Str iStatus End Sub s k sk o sk sk sk sk Set the Form button state J sk sk sk ak sk ak ak ak ak ak k ak of ake ake 9k ak 9k k 9k ake ck ok ok ce e e e Private Sub SetButtonState iState As Boolean We set the state of the buttons either connected or disconnected iState Then Connect Enabled False Disconnect Enabled True ONCmd Enabled True OffCmd Enabled True DCCAddr Enabled
106. mands with an indication that at least one of said first and second commands was unsuccessfully vali dated 101 The method of claim 95 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 102 The method of claim 101 wherein said validation is performed by an event driven dispatcher 103 The method of claim 101 wherein said first command and said third command are the same command and said second command and said fourth command are the same command 104 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b receiving said first command at said resident external controlling interface c comparing said first command against other com mands in a command queue to determine if the result of executing said first and second commands would result in a net state change of said model railroad that would also result from a single different command and the execution of said first command would result in a net state change of said model railroad and d said resident external controlling interface selectively sending said single different command to one of a plurality of digital c
107. mation contained within at least one of said third and fourth commands 12 The method of claim 11 wherein said first communi cations transport is at least one of a COM interface DCOM interface and a COBRA interface 13 The method of claim 11 wherein said first communi cations transport and said second communications transport are DCOM interfaces 14 The method of claim 10 wherein said first client program and said resident external controlling interface are operating on the same computer 15 The method of claim 11 wherein said first client program said second client program and said resident external controlling interface are all operating on different computers 10 15 20 25 30 35 45 50 55 60 65 52 16 The method of claim 10 further comprising the step of providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface prior to validating said first command against permissible actions regarding the interac tion between a plurality of objects of said model railroad 17 The method of claim 16 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station and validating said responses regarding said interaction 18 The method of claim 17 further comprising the step of comparing said command statio
108. mation from said database related to said first com mand 163 The method of claim 151 wherein said resident external controlling interface communicates in an asynchro nous manner with said first client program while commu nicating in synchronous manner with said plurality of digital command stations 164 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b transmitting a second command from a second client program to a resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport c receiving said first command at said resident external controlling interface 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 66 d receiving said second command at said resident exter nal controlling interface e queuing said first and second commands in a com mand queue based on a non first in first out prioritiza tion and f said resident external controlling interface sending a third and fourth command representative of said first command and said second command respectively to the same digital command station for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said prioritization 165 The method of claim 164 wherein said resident external controlling interface communicates in an asynchro
109. n Value Type Range Description bsErrorString BSTR 1 Error string 1 Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for C Empty string on error KamMiscGetErrorMsg takes an error flag as a parameter It returns a BSTR containing the descriptive error message associated with the specified error flag OKamMiscGetClockTime Parameter List Type Range Direction iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 In iSelectTimeMode int 2 In Description Logical port ID Clock source piDay int 0 6 Out Day of week piHours int 0 23 Out Hours piMinutes int 0 59 Out Minutes piRatio int 3 Out Fast clock ratio 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts 2 0 Load from command station and sync server 1 Load direct from server 2 Load from cached server copy of command station time 3 Real time clock ratio Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamMiscGetClockTime takes the port ID the time mode and pointers to locations to store the day hours minutes and fast clock ratio as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by piDay to the fast clock day sets pointed to by piHours to the fast clock hours sets the memory pointed to by piMinutes to the fast clock minutes and the memory pointed to by piRatio to the fast clock ratio The servers local time will be returned if the command station does not support a fast
110. n an asynchronous manner with said first client program while communicating in a synchronous man ner with said plurality of digital command stations 95 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b transmitting a second command from a second client program to said resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport c receiving said first command and said second com mand at said resident external controlling interface d said resident external controlling interface queuing said first and second commands e comparing said first and second commands to one another to determine if the result of executing said first and second commands would result in a net state change of said model railroad that would also result from a single different command and the execution of one of said first and second commands would result in a net state change of said model railroad and f said resident external controlling interface sending said single different command representative of the net state change of said first and second commands to a digital command station for execution on said digitally con trolled model railroad 96 The method of claim 95 further comprising the steps of a providing an acknowledgment to said fi
111. n responses to previous commands sent to said digital command station to determine which said previous commands it corresponds with 19 The method of claim 16 further comprising the step of updating validation of said first command based on data received from said digital command stations 20 The method of claim 19 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon command station responses rep resentative of said state of said digitally controlled model railroad 21 The method of claim 20 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface together with state information from said database related to said first com mand 22 The method of claim 10 wherein said resident external controlling interface communicates in an asynchronous manner with said first client program while communicating in a synchronous manner with said plurality of digital command stations 23 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b transmitting a second command from a second client program to a resident external controlling interface through a second communications
112. n to determine which said previous commands it corresponds with 79 The method of claim 78 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 80 The method of claim 79 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client 15 20 25 30 40 50 55 60 65 58 program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface together with state information from said database related to said first com mand 81 The method of claim 70 wherein said validation is performed by an event driven dispatcher 82 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a first processor through a first communications transport b receiving said first command at said first processor c comparing said first command against other com mands in a command queue to determine if the result of executing said first command and at least one of said other commands would result in no net state change of said model railroad and the execution of said first command would result in a net state change of said model railroad and d said first processor providing an acknowledgment to said firs
113. nce enhancement by a fast acknowledgement to the client program 14 using the local database storage 102 and thereby freeing up the communications transport 12 for additional commands In addition the number of commands forwarded to the external device control logic 114 and the external devices 116 which are relatively slow to respond is minimized by maintaining information concerning the state and configuration of the model railroad Also the use of two separate database tables 102 and 112 allows more efficient multi threading on multi processor computers In order to achieve the separation of the asynchronous and synchronous portions of the system the command queue 104 is implemented as a named pipe as developed by Microsoft for Windows The queue 104 allows both portions to be separate from each other where each considers the other to be the destination device In addition the command queue maintains the order of operation which is important to proper operation of the system The use of a single command queue 104 allows multiple instantrations of the asynchronous functionality with one for each different client The single command queue 104 also allows the sharing of multiple devices multiple clients to communicate with the same device locally or remote in controlled manner and multiple clients to communicate with different devices In other words the command queue 104 permits the proper execution in the cases of 1 one client
114. nd against other com mands in said command queue to determine if the result of executing said third command and said other com mands would result in no net state change of said model railroad and the execution of said third command would result in a net state change of said model railroad and d said resident external controlling interface selectively sending a fourth command representative of said third command to one of said plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said third and fourth commands 59 The method of claim 58 wherein said first communi cations transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 60 The method of claim 58 wherein said first communi cations transport and said second communications transport are DCOM interfaces 61 The method of claim 57 wherein said first client program and said resident external controlling interface are operating on the same computer 62 The method of claim 58 wherein said first client program said second client program and said resident external controlling interface are all operating on different computers 63 The method of claim 57 further comprising the step of providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface prior to validating said first command agains
115. ner less destructive to the model railroad In addition for multiple commands of the same type a different priority number may be assigned to each so therefore when removing or deciding which to execute next the priority number of each may be used to further classify commands within a given type This provides a convenient technique of prioritizing commands An additional technique suitable for model railroads in combination with relatively slow real time devices is that when the system knows that there is an outstanding valid request made to the digital command station then there is no point in making another request to the digital command station nor adding another such command to the command queue This further removes a particular category of com mands from the command queue It is to be understood that this queue system may be used in any system such as for example one local machine without a network COM DCOM COBRA internet protocol sockets etc The terms and expressions which have been employed in the foregoing specification are used therein as terms of description and not of limitation and there is no intention in the use of such terms and expressions of excluding equivalents of the features shown and described or portions thereof it being recognized that the scope of the invention is defined and limited only by the claims which follow What is claimed is 1 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad
116. ng of the command may also include additional information from the local database storage 102 to complete the client program 14 request if necessary Together with packaging the command for the command queue 104 the asynchronous command processor 100 provides a command to the asynchronous request processor 106 to provide a response to the client program 14 indicating that the event has occurred even though such an event has yet to occur on the physical railroad layout As such it can be observed that whether or not the command is valid whether or not the information requested by the command is available to the asynchronous command processor 100 and whether or not the command has executed the combination of the asynchronous command processor 100 and the asynchronous response processor 106 both verifies the validity of the command and provides a response to the client program 14 thereby freeing up the communications transport 12 for additional commands Without the asynchronous nature of the resident external controlling interface 16 the response to the client program 14 would be in many circumstances delayed thereby result ing in frustration to the operator that the model railroad is performing in a slow and painstaking manner In this manner the railroad operation using the asynchronous inter face appears to the operator as nearly instantaneously responsive Each command in the command queue 104 is fetched by synchronous command p
117. nowl edgment to said second client program through said second communications transport indicating that said 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 54 second command has been validated against permis sible actions regarding the interaction between a plu rality of objects of said model railroad and properly executed prior to execution of commands related to said second command by said digitally controlled model railroad 39 The method of claim 38 further comprising the steps of a sending a third command representative of said first command to one of a plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said first and third commands and b sending a fourth command representative of said second command to one of said plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally con trolled model railroad based upon information con tained within at least one of said second and fourth commands 40 The method of claim 35 wherein said first communi cations transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 41 The method of claim 38 wherein said first communi cations transport and said second communications transport are DCOM interfaces 42 The method of claim 35 wherein said first client program and said first processor are operating on the same computer 43 The method
118. oder CVs to the server using the KamProgramReadDecoderToDataBase command You can then read and modify this server copy of the CVs Finally you can program one or more CVs into the decoder using the KamProgramCV or KamProgramDecoderFromDataBase command Not that you must first enter programming mode by issuing the KamProgram command before any programming can be done OKamProgram Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iProgLogPort int 1 65535 2 In Logical programming port ID iProgMode int 3 In Programming mode 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts 3 0 PROGRAM MODE NONE 1 PROGRAM MODE ADDRESS 2 PROGRAM MODE REGISTER 3 PROGRAM MODE PAGE 4 PROGRAM MODE DIRECT 5 DCODE PRGMODE OPS SHORT 6 PROGRAM MODE OPS LONG Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamProgram take the decoder object ID logical programming port ID and programming mode as parameters It changes the command station mode from normal operation PROGRAM_MODE_ NONE to the specified programming mode Once in programming modes any number of programming commands may be called When done you must call KamProgram with a parameter of PROGRAM MODE NONE to return to normal operation OKamProgramGetMode Parameter List Ty
119. of time sensi tiveness may be placed into the queue in a location ahead of those that have less time sensitiveness In this manner the time sensitive commands may be executed by the digital command station prior to those that are less time sensitive This provides the appearance to the user that the model railroad is operating more efficiently and responsively Another technique that may be used to prioritize the commands in the command queue is to assign a priority to each command As an example a priority of 0 would be indicative of don t care with a priority of 255 do immediately with the intermediate numbers in between being of numerical related importance The command queue would then place new commands in the command queue in the order of priority or otherwise provide the next command to the command station that has the highest priority within the command queue In addition if a particular number such as 255 is used only for emergency commands that must be executed next then the computer may assign that value to the command so that it is next to be executed by the digital command station Such emergency commands may include for example emergency stop and power off In the event that the command queue still fills then the system may remove 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 50 commands from the command queue based on its order of priority thereby alleviating an overflow condition in a man
120. ommand stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad 105 The method of claim 104 further comprising the steps of a transmitting a third command from a second client program to said resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport b receiving said third command at said resident external controlling interface c validating said third command against permissible actions regarding the interaction between a plurality of objects of said model railroad and d said resident external controlling interface selectively sending a fourth command representative of said third command to one of said plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said third and fourth commands 106 The method of claim 105 wherein said first commu nications transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 107 The method of claim 105 wherein said first commu nications transport and said second communications trans port are DCOM interfaces 108 The method of claim 104 wherein said first client program and said resident external controlling interface are operating on the same computer 109 The method of claim 105 wherein said first client program said second client program and said resident external controlling interface are all operating on different computers 0 6 270 040
121. on controller iControl lerID bsControllerName Description 0 UNKNOWN Unknown controller type 1 SIMULAT Interface simulator 2 LENZ 1 Lenz version 1 serial support module 3 LENZ 2x Lenz version 2 serial support module 4 DIGIT DT200 Digitrax direct drive support using DT200 5 DIGIT_DCS100 Digitrax direct drive support using DCS100 6 MASTERSERIES North coast engineering master series v SYSTEMONE System one 8 RAMFIX RAMFIxx system 9 SERIAL NMRA serial interface 10 EASYDCC CVP Easy DCC 11 MRK6050 Marklin 6050 interface AC and DC 12 MRK6023 Marklin 6023 interface AC 13 DIGIT_PR1 Digitrax direct drive using PR1 14 DIRECT Direct drive interface routine 15 ZIC ZTC system ltd 16 TRIX TRIX controller iIndex Name iValue Values 0 RETRANS 10 255 1 RATE 0 300 BAUD 1 1200 BAUD 2 2400 BAUD 3 4800 BAUD 4 9600 BAUD 5 14400 BAUD 6 16400 BAUD 7 19200 BAUD 2 NONE 1 ODD 2 EVEN 3 MARK 4 SPACE 3 STOP 0 1 bit 1 5 bits 2 2 bits 4 WATCHDOG 500 65535 milliseconds Recommended value 2048 5 FLOW 0 NONE 1 XON XOFF 2 RTS CTS 3 BOTH 6 DATA 0 7 bits 1 8 bits 7 DEBUGBit mask Bit 1 sends messages to debug file Bit 2 sends messages to the screen Bit 3 shows queue data Bit 4 shows UI status Bit 5 is reserved Bit 6 shows semaphore and critical sections Bit 7 shows miscellaneous messages Bit 8 shows comm port activity 130 decimal is recommended for debugging 8 PARALLEL OKamPortPu
122. on information con tained within at least one of said second and fourth commands 87 The method of claim 82 wherein said first communi cations transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 88 The method of claim 85 wherein said first communi cations transport and said second communications transport are DCOM interfaces 89 The method of claim 82 wherein said first client program and said first processor are operating on the same computer 90 The method of claim 85 wherein said first client program said second client program and said first processor are all operating on different computers 0 6 270 040 1 59 91 The method of claim 82 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station 92 The method of claim 82 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 93 The method of claim 92 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by first processor together with state information from said database related to said first command 94 The method of claim 90 wherein said first processor communicates i
123. on of commands occurs nearly instantaneously the re execution of commands does not pose a significant problem and may be beneficial for ensuring that each user has the appropriate commands executed in the order requested However in the real time environment of a model railroad all of this activity requires substantial time to complete thereby slowing down the responsiveness of the system Commands tend to build up waiting for execution which decreases the user perceived responsiveness of control of the model railroad The user perceiving no response continues to request commands be placed in the queue thereby exacerbating the perceived responsiveness problem The responsiveness problem is more apparent as processor speeds of the client computer increase Since there is but a single model railroad the apparent speed with which commands are executed is important for user satisfaction Initially the present inventor determined that duplicate commands residing in the command queue of the interface 16 should be removed Accordingly if different users issue the same command to the model railroad then the duplicate commands are not executed execute one copy of the command In addition this alleviates the effects of a single user requesting that the same command is executed multiple times The removal of duplicate commands will increase the apparent responsiveness of the model railroad because the time required to re execute a command already execut
124. ond communications transport c receiving said first command and said second com mand at said resident external controlling interface d said resident external controlling interface queuing said first and second commands e comparing said first and second commands to one another to determine if the result of executing said first and second commands would result in no net state change of said model railroad and the execution of one of said first and second command would result in a net state change of said model railroad and 0 6 270 040 1 55 f said resident external controlling interface sending third and fourth commands representative of said first and second commands respectively to a digital com mand station for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad if as a result of said comparing a net state change of said model railroad would result 49 The method of claim 48 further comprising the steps of a providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface that said first command was successfully validated against permis sible actions regarding the interaction between a plu rality of objects of said model railroad prior to validat ing said first command and b providing an acknowledgment to said second client program in response to receiving said second command by said resident external controlling inte
125. ond processor which processes said first command into a state suitable for a digital command station for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad 178 The method of claim 177 further comprising the step of said second process queuing a plurality of commands received 179 The method of claim 176 further comprising the steps of a transmitting a second command from a second client program to said first processor through a second com munications transport b receiving said second command at said first processor and c said first processor selectively providing an acknowl edgment to said second client program through said second communications transport indicating that said second command has been executed 180 The method of claim 179 further comprising the steps of sending a third command representative of said first command to one of a plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said first and third commands and b sending a fourth command representative of said second command to one of said plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally con trolled model railroad based upon information con tained within at least one of said second and fourth commands 181 The method of claim 176 wherein said first commu nications transport is at least one of a COM interface and a
126. ons transport and said second communications trans port are DCOM interfaces 230 The method of claim 223 wherein said first client program and said first processor are operating on the same computer 231 The method of claim 226 wherein said first client program said second client program and said first processor are all operating on different computers 232 The method of claim 223 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station 233 The method of claim 223 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 234 The method of claim 233 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by first processor together with state information from said database related to said first command 235 The method of claim 231 wherein said first processor communicates in an asynchronous manner with said first client program while communicating in a synchronous man ner with said plurality of digital command stations
127. or 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngGetFuncntionName takes a decoder object ID function ID and a pointer to the function name as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pbsFcnNameString to the symbolic name of the specified 0 6 270 040 1 27 continued unction OKamEngPutFunctionName Parameter List Type Range Direction Description DecoderObjectID long 1 In iFunctionID int 0 8 2 In bsFcnNameString BSTR 3 In 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 FL is 0 1 8 are 1 8 respectively Maximum for his decoder is given by KamEngGetFunctionMax 3 Exact parameter type depends on language It is LPCSTR for C Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngPutFunctionName takes a decoder object ID function ID and a BSTR as parameters It sets the specified symbolic function name to bsFcnNameString OKamEngGetConsistMax Parameter List Type Range DecoderObjectID long 1 In piMaxConsist int 2 Out Decoder object ID Function ID number Function name Direction Description Decoder object ID Pointer to max consist number Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Command station dependent Return Value Type Range Description iError shor 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg Ka
128. or to validat ing said first command and b providing an acknowledgment to said second client program in response to receiving said second command by said resident external controlling interface that said second command was successfully validated against permissible actions regarding the interaction between a plurality of objects of said model railroad prior to validating said second command 191 The method of claim 189 further comprising the steps of selectively sending said third command to one of a plurality of digital command stations 192 The method of claim 189 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said digital command station and validating said responses regarding said interaction 193 The method of claim 189 wherein said first and second commands relate to the speed of locomotives 194 The method of claim 190 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to at least one of said first and second client programs of at least one of said first and second commands with an indication that at least one of said first and second commands was unsuccessfully vali dated 195 The method of claim 189 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con
129. orts 2 Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for C Empty string on error Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamMiscGetControllerName takes a logical port ID and a pointer to a command station type name as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pbsName to the command station type name for that logical port OKamMiscGetCommandStation Value Parameter List Type Range Direction iControllerID int 1 65535 1 In Description Command station 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 38 continued type ID iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 2 Logical port ID ilndex int 3 In Command station array index piValue int 0 65535 Out Command station value 1 See FIG 6 Controller ID to controller name mapping for values Maximum value for this server is given by KamMiscMaxControllerID 2 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts 3 0 to KamMiscGetCommandStationIndex Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamMiscGetCommandStation Value takes the controller ID logical port value array index and a pointer to the location to store the selected value It sets the memory pointed to by piValue to the specified command station miscellaneous data value OKamMi
130. ory decoder to iNewAddr and sets the memory pointed to by pINewObjID to the new object ID The old object ID is now invalid and should no longer be used OKamDecoderMovePort Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 2 In 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by Logical port ID KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderMovePort takes a decoder object ID and logical port ID as parameters It moves the decoder specified by DecoderObjectID to the controller specified by iLogicalPortID OKamDecoderGetPort Parameter List Type Range Direction Description DecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID piLogicalPortID int 1 65535 2 Out Pointer to logical port ID 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderMovePort takes a decoder object ID and pointer to a logical port ID as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by piLogicalPortID to the logical port ID associated with IDecoderObjectID OKamDecoderCheckAddrInUse Pa
131. otive on the model railroad 302 The commands issued by the manual throttle 320 may be passed first to the dispatcher controller 310 for validation in a similar manner to that of the client programs 14 0 6 270 040 1 47 Alternatively commands from the manual throttle 320 may be directly passed to the model railroad 302 without first being validated by the dispatcher controller 302 After execution of commands by the external devices 18 a response will be provided to the controlling interface 16 which in response may check the suitability of the command if desired If the command violates the layout rules then a suitable correctional command is issued to the model railroad 302 If the command is valid then no cor rectional command is necessary In either case the status of the model railroad 302 is passed to the client programs 14 control panels 300 As it can be observed the event driven dispatcher con troller 310 maintains the current status of the model railroad 302 so that accurate validation may be performed to mini mize conflicting and potentially damaging commands Depending on the particular implementation the control panel 300 is updated in a suitable manner but in most cases the communication transport 12 is freed up prior to execu tion of the command by the model railroad 302 The computer dispatcher may also be distributed across the network if desired In addition the computer architec ture described herein
132. ous commands sent to said digital command station to determine which said previous commands it corresponds with 173 The method of claim 172 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 174 The method of claim 173 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface together with state information from said database related to said first com mand 175 The method of claim 164 wherein said validation is performed by an event driven dispatcher 176 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a first processor through a first communications transport b receiving said first command at said first processor c queuing said first command in a command queue based on a non first in first out prioritization and d said first processor providing an acknowledgment to said first client program through said first communica 0 6 270 040 1 67 tions transport indicating that said first command has been executed 177 The method of claim 176 further comprising the step of sending said first command to a sec
133. pe Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 101 In Decoder object ID iProgLogPort int 1 65535 2 In Logical programming port ID piProgMode int 3 Out Programming mode 0 6 270 040 1 19 continued 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts 3 0 PROGRAM MODE NONE 1 PROGRAM MODE ADDRESS 2 PROGRAM MODE REGISTER 3 PROGRAM MODE PAGE 4 PROGRAM MODE DIRECT 5 DCODE PRGMODE OPS SHORT 6 PROGRAM MODE OPS LONG Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamProgramGetMode take the decoder object ID logical programming port ID and pointer to a place to store the programming mode as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by piProgMode to the present programming mode OKamProgramGetStatus Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iCVRegint 0 1024 2 In CV number piCVAllStatus int 3 Out decoder programming status 4 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 0 returns OR d value for all CVs Other values return status for just that CV 3 0 0001 SET INUSE 0x0002 SET READ DIRTY 0x0004 SET WRITE DIRTY 0 0008 SET CV ERROR READ 0 0010 SET ERROR WRITE Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for
134. perating thereon the operators each provide com mands to the resistant external controlling interface and hence the model railroad In addition by queuing by com mands at a single resident external controlling interface permits controlled execution of the commands by the digi tally controlled model railroad would may otherwise con flict with one another In another aspect of the present invention the first com mand is selectively processed and sent to one of a plurality of digital command stations for execution on the digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained therein Preferably the second command is also selectively processed and sent to one of the plurality of digital command stations for execution on the digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained therein The resident external controlling interface also preferably includes a command queue to maintain the order of the commands The command queue also allows the sharing of multiple devices multiple clients to communicate with the same device locally or remote in a controlled manner and multiple clients to communicate with different devices In other words the command queue permits the proper execu tion in the cases of 1 one client to many devices 2 many clients to one device and 3 many clients to many devices In yet another aspect of the present invention the first command is transmitted from a first client program to
135. r see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamOprPutEmergencyStop takes a logical port ID as a parameter It performs the steps necessary to broadcast an emergency stop command to all decoders OKamOprGetStationStatus Description Logical port ID Description Logical port ID Parameter List Type Range Direction Description iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 In Logical port ID pbsCmdStat BSTR 2 Out Command station status string 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts 2 Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 0 6 270 040 1 33 continued 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamOprGetStationStatus takes a logical port ID and a pointer to a string as parameters It set the memory pointed to by pbsCmdStat to the command station status The exact format of the status BSTR is vendor dependent A Commands to configure the command station communication port This section describes the commands that configure the command station communication port These commands do things such as setting BAUD rate Several of the commands in this section use the numeric controller ID iControllerID to identify a specific type of command station controller The following table shows the mapping between the controller ID iControllerID and controller name bsControllerName for a given type of command stati
136. railroad comprising the steps of 10 15 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 68 a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport b transmitting a second command from a second client program to said resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport c receiving said first command and said second com mand at said resident external controlling interface d said resident external controlling interface queuing said first and second commands e queuing said first and second commands in com mand queue having the characteristic that valid com mands in said command queue are removed from said command queue without being executed by said model railroad and f said resident external controlling interface sending third and fourth commands representative of said first and second commands respectively to a digital com mand station for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad if not said removed 190 The method of claim 189 further comprising the steps of a providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface that said first command was successfully validated against permis sible actions regarding the interaction between a plu rality of objects of said model railroad pri
137. rameter List Type Range iDecoderAddress int 1 In iLogicalPortID int 2 In Logical Port ID iDecoderClass int 3 In Class of decoder 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts 3 1 DECODER_ ENGINE TYPE 2 DECODER_SWITCH_TYPE 3 DECODER SENSOR TYPE Direction Description Decoder address Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for successful call and address not in use Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg IDS_ERR_ADDRESSEXIST returned if call succeeded but the address exists KamDecoderCheckAddrInUse takes a decoder address logical port and decoder class as parameters It returns zero if the address is not in use It will return 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 22 continued IDS_ERR_ADDRESSEXIST if the call succeeds but the address alraedy exists It will return the appropriate non zero error number if the calls fails OKamDecoderGetModelFromObj Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID piModelint 1 65535 2 Out Pointer to decoder type ID 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum value for this server given by KamDecoderGetMaxModels Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetE
138. rating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a first processor through a first communications transport b receiving said first command at said first processor c queuing said first command in a command queue that is not a first in first out command queue and d said first processor providing an acknowledgment to said first client program through said first communica tions transport indicating that said first command has been validated against permissible actions regarding the interaction between a plurality of objects of said model railroad and properly executed prior to execution of commands related to said first command by said digitally controlled model railroad 36 The method of claim 35 further comprising the step of sending said first command to a second processor which processes said first command into a state suitable for a digital command station for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad 37 The method of claim 36 further comprising the step of said second process queuing a plurality of commands received 38 The method of claim 35 further comprising the steps of a transmitting a second command from a second client program to said first processor through a second com munications transport b receiving said second command at said first processor and c said first processor selectively providing an ack
139. receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station 125 The method of claim 124 further comprising the step of comparing said command station responses to previous commands sent to said digital command station to determine which said previous commands it corresponds with 126 The method of claim 125 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 127 The method of claim 126 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface together with state information from said database related to said first com mand 128 The method of claim 117 wherein said validation is performed by an event driven dispatcher 129 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a first processor through a first communications transport b receiving said first command at said first processor c comparing said first command against other com mands in a command queue to determine if the result of executing said first command and at least one of
140. rein said first commu nications transport and said second communications trans port are DCOM interfaces 215 The method of claim 211 wherein said first client program and said resident external controlling interface are operating on the same computer 216 The method of claim 211 wherein said first client program said second client program and said resident external controlling interface are all operating on different computers 217 The method of claim 211 further comprising the step of providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface that said first command was successfully validated prior to validating said first command against permissible actions regarding the interaction between a plurality of objects of said model railroad 218 The method of claim 217 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station 219 The method of claim 218 further comprising the step of comparing said command station responses to previous commands sent to said digital command station to determine which said previous commands it corresponds with 0 6 270 040 1 71 220 The method of claim 219 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving
141. removed from its queue A command response processor 204 receives all the commands from the command stations and passes the com mands to the validation function 206 The validation func tion 206 compares the received command against potential commands that are in the queue of the command sender 202 that could potentially provide such a result The validation function 206 determines one of four potential results from the comparison First the results could be simply bad data that is discarded Second the results could be partially executed commands which are likewise normally discarded Third the results could be valid responses but not relevant to any command sent Such a case could result from the operator manually changing the state of devices on the model railroad or from another external device assuming a shared interface to the DCS Accordingly the results are validated and passed to the result processor 210 Fourth the results could be valid responses relevant to a command sent The corresponding command is removed from the command sender 202 and the results passed to the result processor 210 The commands in the queue of the command sender 202 as a result of the validation process 206 are retransmitted a predetermined number of times then if error still occurs the digital command station is reset which if the error still persists then the command is removed and the operator is notified of the error APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERF
142. rentObjID long 1 In Description Parent decoder object ID DCCObjID long 1 In Decoder object ID 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngPutConsistChild takes the decoder parent object ID and decoder object ID as parameters It assigns the decoder specified by IDCCObjID to the consist identified by IDCCParentObjID Note that this command is designed for command station consisting CV consisting is handled using the CV commands Note This command is invalid if 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 28 continued the parent has not been set previously using KamEngPutConsistParent OKamEngPutConsistRemoveObj Parameter List Type Range IDecoderObjectID long 1 In 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by Direction Description Decoder object ID KamDecoderPutAdd Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamEngputConsistRemoveObj takes the decoder object ID as a parameter It removes the decoder specified by IDecoderObjectID from the consist Note that this command is designed for command station consisting CV consisting is handled using the CV commands Note If the parent is removed all children are removed also A Comman
143. rface that said second command was successfully validated against permissible actions regarding the interaction between a plurality of objects of said model railroad prior to validating said second command 50 The method of claim 48 further comprising the steps of selectively sending said third command to one of a plurality of digital command stations 51 The method of claim 48 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said digital command station and validating said responses regarding said interaction 52 The method of claim 48 wherein said first and second commands relate to the speed of locomotives 53 The method of claim 49 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to at least one of said first and second client programs of at least one of said first and second commands with an indication that at least one of said first and second commands was unsuccessfully vali dated 54 The method of claim 48 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon said receiving command station responses representative of said state of said digitally con trolled model railroad 55 The method of claim 54 wherein said validation is performed by an event driven dispatcher 56 The method of claim 54 wherein one of said first and second command and said t
144. rocessor 110 and processed The synchronous command processor 110 queries a controller database storage 112 for additional information as necessary and determines if the command has already been executed based on the state of the devices in the controller database storage 112 In the event that the command has already been executed as indicated by the controller data base storage 112 then the synchronous command processor 110 passes information to the command queue 104 that the command has been executed or the state of the device The asynchronous response processor 106 fetches the informa tion from the command cue 104 and provides a suitable response to the client program 14 if necessary and updates the local database storage 102 to reflect the updated status of the railroad layout devices If the command fetched by the synchronous command processor 110 from the command queue 104 requires execu tion by external devices such as the train engine then the command is posted to one of several external device control logic 114 blocks The external device control logic 114 processes the command from the synchronous command processor 110 and issues appropriate control commands to the interface of the particular external device 116 to execute the command on the device and ensure that an appropriate response was received in response The external device is preferably a digital command control device that transmits digital commands to decoders usin
145. rom a second client program to the resident external 825 52 286 01 286 02 701 19 20 controlling interface through a second communications transport The first command and the second command 56 References Cited received by the resident external controlling interface which U S PATENT DOCUMENTS queues the first and second commands The resident external controlling interface sends third and fourth commands rep 3944986 3 1976 Staples ce 340 1725 resentative of the first and second commands respectively 222 d Ms d 5 246 5 to a digital command station for execution on the digitally 853 ickles et al 5 072 900 12 1991 Malon 2465 Controlled model railroad 5 475 818 12 1995 Molyneaux et al 5 681 015 10 1997 Kull 235 Claims 13 Drawing Sheets 16 RESIDENT CLIENT EXTERNAL PROGRAM CONTROLLING o INTERFACE 9 2 11000 N CLIENT PROGRAM DIGITAL COMMAND STATIONS MAIN LINE PROFILE 0 8 0 5 rua Dos DT MR 0 6 15 SW amp p 04 0 6 n WESTERN ALLEGHENY gt ATLANTIC DIVISION fj DIVISION S T ABS Q t EITHER DIRECTION METABLE i SIGNALLING FOR QE 2 EQUILATERAL BLOCK EXCESS HEIGHT ORDER Aa HIGH SPEED SIGNALS W een FALE OMA H YARDS CIC 3 gt S ES 55 TRAFFIC NO INTERME INTERMEDIATE BLOCK IGNALS POWER SWITCHES S 7 GGPERIOR BY DIRECTION 2 AT ONLY ONE
146. rrorMsg KamDecoderGetModelFromObj takes a decoder object ID and pointer to a decoder type ID as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by piModel to the decoder type ID associated with iDCCAddr OKamDecoderGetModelFacility Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID pdwFacility long 2 Out Pointer to decoder facility mask 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 0 DCODE PRGMODE ADDR 1 DCODE PRGMODE REG 2 DCODE PRGMODE PAGE 3 DCODE PRGMODE DIR 4 DCODE PRGMODE FLYSHT 5 DCODE PRGMODE FLYLNG 6 Reserved 7 Reserved 8 Reserved Se Reserved 10 Reserved 11 Reserved 12 Reserved 13 DCODE FEAT DIRLIGHT 14 DCODE FEAT LNGADDR 15 DCODE FEAT CVENABLE 16 DCODE FEDMODE ADDR 17 DCODE FEDMODE REG 18 DCODE FEDMODE 19 DCODE FEDMODE DIR 20 DCODE FEDMODE FLYSHT 21 DCODE FEDMODE FLYLNG Return Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamDecoderGetModelFacility takes a decoder object ID and pointer to a decoder facility mask as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pdwFacility to the decoder facility mask associated with iDCCAddr OKamDecoderGetObjCount Parameter List Type Range iDecoderClass int 1 In piObjCount int 0 65535 Direction Description Class of decoder Out Count of active decoders 1 1 DECODER ENGINE TYPE 2
147. rst client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface that said first command was successfully validated against permis sible actions regarding the interaction between a plu rality of objects of said model railroad prior to validat ing said first command and b providing an acknowledgment to said second client program in response to receiving said second command by said resident external controlling interface that said second command was successfully validated against permissible actions regarding the interaction between a plurality of objects of said model railroad prior to validating said second command 97 The method of claim 95 further comprising the steps of selectively sending said single different command to one of a plurality of digital command stations 98 The method of claim 95 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said digital command station and validating said responses regarding said interaction 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 50 55 60 65 60 99 The method of claim 95 wherein said first and second commands relate to the speed of locomotives 100 The method of claim 96 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to at least one of said first and second client programs of at least one of said first and second com
148. s a result of said comparing such a single different command exists 118 The method of claim 117 wherein said resident external controlling interface communicates in an asynchro nous manner with said first and second client programs while communicating in a synchronous manner with said digital command station 119 The method of claim 117 wherein said first commu nications transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 62 120 The method of claim 117 wherein said first commu nications transport and said second communications trans port are DCOM interfaces 121 The method of claim 117 wherein said first client program and said resident external controlling interface are operating on the same computer 122 The method of claim 117 wherein said first client program said second client program and said resident external controlling interface are all operating on different computers 123 The method of claim 117 further comprising the step of providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface that said first command was successfully validated against permissible actions regarding the interaction between a plurality of objects of said model railroad prior to validating said first command 124 The method of claim 123 further comprising the step of
149. s decoder is given by KamAccGetFunctionMax Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccRegFeedback takes a decoder object ID node name string and function ID as parameters It registers interest in the function given by iFunctionID by the method given by the node name string bsAccNode bsAccNode identifies the server application and method to call if the function changes state Its format is Server App Method where Server is the server name App is the application name and Method is the method name OKamAccRegFeedbackAll Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID bsAccNode BSTR 2 In Server node name 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Exact parameter type depends on language It is LPCSTR for C Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccRegFeedbackAll takes a decoder object ID and node name string as parameters It registers interest in all functions by the method given by the node name string bsAccNode bsAccNode identifies the server application and method to call if the function changes state Its format is Server App Method where Server is the server name App is the application name and
150. said other commands would result in net state change of said model railroad that would also result from a single different command and the execution of said first command would result in a net state change of said model railroad and d said first processor providing an acknowledgment to said first client program through said first communica tions transport indicating that said first command has been executed 130 The method of claim 129 further comprising the step of sending said first command to a second processor which processes said first command into a state suitable for a digital command station for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad 131 The method of claim 130 further comprising the step of said second process queuing a plurality of commands received 132 The method of claim 129 further comprising the steps of a transmitting a second command from a second client program to said first processor through a second com munications transport 0 6 270 040 1 63 b receiving said second command at said first processor and c said first processor selectively providing an acknowl edgment to said second client program through said second communications transport indicating that said second command has been executed 133 The method of claim 132 further comprising the steps of a sending a third command representative of said first command to one of a plurality of digital command stations
151. scSetCommandStation Value Parameter List Type Range Direction Description iControllerID int 1 65535 1 In Command station type ID iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 2 In Logical port ID ilndex int 3 In Command station array index iValue int 0 65535 In Command station value 1 See FIG 6 Controller ID to controller name mapping for values Maximum value for this server is given by KamMiscMaxControllerID 2 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts 3 0 to KamMiscGetCommandStationIndex Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamMiscSetCommandStation Value takes the controller ID logical port value array index and new miscellaneous data value It sets the specified command station data to the value given by piValue OKamMiscGetCommandStationIndex ParameterList Type Range Direction Description iControllerID int 1 65535 1 In Command station type ID iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 2 In Logical port ID pilndex int 0 65535 Out Pointer to maximum index 1 See FIG 6 Controller ID to controller name mapping for values Maximum value for this server is given by KamMiscMaxControllerID 2 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamMiscGetCommandStationInd
152. str Ver If iError Then MsgBox Train Server not loaded Check DCOM 95 iLogicalPort 0 LogPort Caption iLogicalPort ComPort Caption 222 Controller Caption Unknown Else MsgBox Simulation COM1 Train Server amp strVer Jak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ak ake ak ake ake ake ake K ake ake ke fe fe Ef ske ke ake ske R R k e Configuration information Only need to change these values to use a different controller UNKNOWN 0 Unknown control type SIMULAT 1 Interface simulator US 6 270 040 B1 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 12 continued LENZ 1 2 Lenz serial support module LENZ 2x 3 Lenz serial support module DIGIT DT200 4 Digitrax direct drive support using DT200 5 Digitrax direct drive support using DCS100 DIGIT DCS100 MASTERSERIES 6 North Coast engineering master Series SYSTEMONE 7 System One RAMFIX 8 RAMFIxx system DYNATROL 9 Dynatrol system Northcoast binary 10 North Coast binary SERIAL 1 NMRA Serial interface EASYDCC 2 NMRA Serial interface MRK6050 3 6050 Marklin interface AC and DC MRK6023 4 6023 Marklin hybrid interface AC ZTC 5 ZTC Systems ltd DIGIT_PR1 6 Digitrax direct drive support using PR1 DIRECT 7 Direct drive interface routine Jak sk s
153. supports different computer interfaces at the client program 14 The present inventor has observed that periodically the commands in the queue to the digital command stations or the buffer of the digital command station overflow resulting in a system crash or loss of data In some cases the queue fills up with commands and then no additional commands may be accepted After further consideration of the slow real time manner of operation of digital command stations the apparent solution is to incorporate a buffer model in the interface 16 to provide commands to the digital command station at a rate no faster than the ability of the digital command station to execute the commands together with an exceptionally large computer buffer For example the com mand may take 5 ms to be transmitted from the interface 16 to the command station 100 ms for processing by the command station 3 ms to transfer to the digital device such as a model train The digital device may take 10 ms to execute the command for example and another 20 ms to transmit back to the digital command station which may again take 100 ms to process and 5 ms to send the processed result to interface 16 In total the delay may be on the order of 243 ms which is extremely long in comparison to the ability of the interface 16 to receive commands and transmit commands to the digital command station After consider ation of the timing issues and the potential solution of simply slowing
154. t client program through said first communica tions transport indicating that said first command has been executed 83 The method of claim 82 further comprising the step of sending said first command to a second processor which processes said first command into a state suitable for a digital command station for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad 84 The method of claim 83 further comprising the step of said second process queuing a plurality of commands received 85 The method of claim 82 further comprising the steps of a transmitting a second command from a second client program to said first processor through a second com munications transport b receiving said second command at said first processor and c said first processor selectively providing an acknowl edgment to said second client program through said second communications transport indicating that said second command has been executed 86 The method of claim 85 further comprising the steps of a sending a third command representative of said first command to one of a plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said first and third commands and b sending a fourth command representative of said second command to one of said plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally con trolled model railroad based up
155. t permissible actions regarding the interac tion between a plurality of objects of said model railroad 64 The method of claim 63 further comprising the step of receiving command station responses representative of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad from said of digital command station and validating said responses regarding said interaction 65 The method of claim 64 further comprising the step of comparing said command station responses to previous commands sent to said digital command station to determine which said previous commands it corresponds with 66 The method of claim 63 further comprising the step of updating validation of said first command based on data received from said digital command stations 67 The method of claim 66 further comprising the step of updating a database of the state of said digitally controlled model railroad based upon command station responses rep resentative of said state of said digitally controlled model railroad 68 The method of claim 67 further comprising the step of updating said successful validation to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface together with state information from said database related to said first com mand 69 The method of claim 57 wherein said resident external controlling interface communicates in an asynchronous manner with said first client program while communicating
156. t suitable for being controlled by multiple operators especially if the operators are located at different locations distant from the model railroad such as different cities A digital command control DDC system has been devel oped to provide additional controllability of individual train engines and other electrical devices Each device the opera tor desires to control such as a train engine includes an individually addressable digital decoder A digital command station DCS is electrically connected to the train track to provide a command in the form of a set of encoded digital bits to a particular device that includes a digital decoder The digital command station is typically controlled by a personal computer A suitable standard for the digital command control system is the NMRA DCC Standards issued March 1997 and is incorporated herein by reference While pro viding the ability to individually control different devices of the railroad set the DCC system still fails to provide the capability for multiple operators to control the railroad devices especially if the operators are remotely located from the railroad set and each other DigiToys Systems of Lawrenceville Ga has developed a software program for controlling a model railroad set from a remote location The software includes an interface which allows the operator to select desired changes to devices of the railroad set that include a digital decoder such as increasing th
157. tCabAddr Parameter List Type Range Direction Descriptions IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID piCabAddress int V 1 65535 2 Out Pointer to Cab address 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum value is command station dependent Return Value Type Range Descriptioni Error short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCabGetCabAddr takes a decoder object ID and a pointer to a cab address as parameters It set the memory pointed to by piCabAddress to the address of the cab attached to the specified decoder OKamCabPutAddrToCab Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iCabAddress int 1 65535 2 In Cab address 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum value is command station dependent Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamCabPutAddrToCab takes a decoder object ID and cab address as parameters It attaches the decoder specified by iDCCAddr to the cab specified by iCabAddress A Miscellaneous Commands This section describes miscellaneous commands that do not fit into the other categories OKamMiscGetErrorMsg Parameter List Type Range Direction Description iError int 0 65535 1 In Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero indicates an error Retur
158. tConfig Parameter List Type iLogicalPortID int Range Direction 1 65535 1 In Description Logical port ID iIndex int 2 In Configuration type index iValue int 2 In Configuration value iKey int 3 In Debug key 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts 2 See FIG 7 Controller configuration Index values for a table of indexes and values 3 Used only for the DEBUG iIndex value Should be set to 0 Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamPortPutConfig takes a logical port ID configuration index configuration value and key as parameters It sets the port parameter specified by iIndex to the value specified by iValue For the DEBUG ilndex value the 10 15 20 25 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 34 continued debug file path is C Temp Debug PORT txt where PORT is the physical comm port ID OKamPortGetConfig Parameter List Type iLogicalPortID int Range Direction Description 1 65535 1 In Logical port ID ilndex int 2 In Configuration type index piValue int 2 Out Pointer to configuration value 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts 2 See FIG 7 Controller configuration Index values for a table of indexes and values Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamM
159. te traveling at its maximum authorized speed From this standpoint it is important to allow trains to move along without receiving any approach indications which will force them to slow down This requires a train 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 44 spacing of two block lengths twice the stopping distance since the signal can t clear until the train ahead is completely out of the second block When fully loaded trains running at high speeds with their stopping distances block lengths must be long and it is not possible to get enough trains over the line to produce appropriate revenue The three block four indication signaling shown in FIG 7 reduces the excess train spacing by 50 with warning two blocks to the rear and signal spacing need be only the braking distance In particularly congested areas such as downgrades where stopping distances are long and trains are likely to bunch up four block four indication signaling may be provided and advanced approach approach medium approach and stop indications give a minimum of three block warning allowing further block shortening and keeps things moving FIG 8 uses aspects of upper quadrant semaphores to illustrate block signaling These signals use the blade rising 90 degrees to give the clear indication Some of the systems that are currently developed by different railroads are shown in FIG 8 With the general rules discussed below a ra
160. ternal controlling interface c queuing said third command in said command queue and d said resident external controlling interface selectively sending a fourth command representative of said third command to one of said plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said third and fourth commands if not said removed 200 The method of claim 199 wherein said first commu nications transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 201 The method of claim 199 wherein said first commu nications transport and said second communications trans port are DCOM interfaces 202 The method of claim 198 wherein said first client program and said resident external controlling interface are operating on the same computer 203 The method of claim 199 wherein said first client program said second client program and said resident external controlling interface are all operating on different computers 204 The method of claim 198 further comprising the step of providing an acknowledgment to said first client program in response to receiving said first command by said resident external controlling interface prior to validating said first command against permissible actions regarding the interac tion between a plurality of objects of said model railroad 205 The method of claim 204 further comprising the step of receivin
161. the commands provides the benefit that the operator considers the commands to occur nearly instanta neously while permitting the resident external controlling interface 16 to verify that the command is proper and cause the commands to execute in a controlled manner by the digital command stations 18 all without additional high speed communication networks Moreover for traditional distributed software execution there is no motivation to provide an acknowledgment prior to the execution of the command because the command executes quickly and most commands are sequential in nature In other words the execution of the next command is dependent upon proper execution of the prior command so there would be no motivation to provide an acknowledgment prior to its actual execution It is to be understood that other devices such as digital devices may be controlled in a manner as described for model railroads Referring to FIG 2 the client program 14 sends a command over the communications transport 12 that is received by an asynchronous command processor 100 The asynchronous command processor 100 queries a local data base storage 102 to determine if it is necessary to package command to be transmitted to a command queue 104 The local database storage 102 primarily contains the state of the devices of the model railroad such as for example the speed of a train the direction of a train whether a draw bridge is up or down whether a light is t
162. to updating if more data becomes available indicating the previous response is incorrect In fact the command may have yet to be executed or verified by the controlling interface 16 After a command is received by the controlling interface 16 the controlling interface 16 passes the com mand in a modified manner if desired to a dispatcher controller 310 The dispatcher controller 310 includes a rule based processor together with the layout of the railroad 302 and the status of objects thereon The objects may include properties such as speed location direction length of the train etc The dispatcher controller 310 processes each received command to determine if the execution of such a command would violate any of the rules together with the layout and status of objects thereon If the command received is within the rules then the command may be passed to the model railroad 302 for execution If the received command violates the rules then the command may be rejected and an appropriate response is provided to update the clients display If desired the invalid command may be modified in a suitable manner and still be provided to the model railroad 302 In addition if the dispatcher controller 310 determines that an event should occur such as stopping a model locomotive it may issue the command and update the control panels 300 accordingly If necessary an update command is provided to the client program 14 to show the update that occurr
163. transport c receiving said first command at said resident external controlling interface d receiving said second command at said resident exter nal controlling interface e queuing said first and second commands and deleting one of said first and second commands if they are the same and f said resident external controlling interface sending a third and fourth command representative of said first command and said second command respectively to the same digital command station for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad 24 The method of claim 23 wherein said resident external controlling interface communicates in an asynchronous manner with said first and second client programs while communicating in a synchronous manner with said digital command station 25 The method of claim 23 wherein said first communi cations transport is at least one of a COM interface and a DCOM interface 26 The method of claim 23 wherein said first communi cations transport and said second communications transport are DCOM interfaces 27 The method of claim 23 wherein said first client program and said resident external controlling interface are operating on the same computer 0 6 270 040 1 53 28 The method of claim 23 wherein said first client program said second client program and said resident external controlling interface are all operating on different computers 29 The method of claim 23 further comprisin
164. trolled model railroad 196 The method of claim 195 wherein said validation is performed by an event driven dispatcher 197 The method of claim 195 wherein said first command and said third command are the same command and said second command and said fourth command are the same command 198 A method of operating a digitally controlled model railroad comprising the steps of a transmitting a first command from a first client pro gram to a resident external controlling interface through a first communications transport 0 6 270 040 1 69 b receiving said first command at said resident external controlling interface c queuing said first command in command queue having the characteristics that valid commands in said command queue are removed from said command queue without being executed by said model railroad and d said resident external controlling interface selectively sending a second command representative of said first command to one of a plurality of digital command stations for execution on said digitally controlled model railroad based upon information contained within at least one of said first and second commands if not said removed 199 The method of claim 198 further comprising the steps of a transmitting a third command from a second client program to said resident external controlling interface through a second communications transport b receiving said third command at said resident ex
165. troller takes a logical port ID a command station type ID and a physical communications port ID as parameters It maps iLogicalPortID to iCommPortID for the type of command station specified by iControllerID OKamPortGetMaxLogPorts Parameter List Type Range piMaxLogicalPorts int 1 Description Logical port ID Command station iCommPortID int Physical comm Direction Out Descriptions Maximum logical port ID 1 Normally 1 65535 0 returned On error Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamPortGetMaxLogPorts takes a pointer to a logical port ID as a parameter It sets the memory pointed to by PiMaxLogicalPorts to the maximum logical port ID OKamPortGetMaxPhysical Parameter List Type Range pMaxPhysical int 1 Direction Description Maximum physical port ID Maximum serial port ID Maximum parallel port ID Out pMaxSerial int 1 Out pMaxParallel int 1 Out 0 6 270 040 1 35 continued 1 Normally 1 65535 0 returned on error Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamPortGetMaxPhysical takes a pointer to the number of physical ports the number of serial ports and the number of parallel ports as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by the parameters to the associated values A
166. urned on or off and the configuration of the model railroad layout If the command received by the asynchronous command processor 100 is a query of the state of a device then the asynchronous command processor 100 retrieves such information from the local database storage 102 and provides the information to an asynchronous response processor 106 The asynchronous response processor 106 then provides a response to the client program 14 indicating the state of the device and releases the communications transport 12 for the next command The asynchronous command processor 100 also verifies using the configuration information in the local database storage 102 that the command received is a potentially valid operation If the command is invalid the asynchronous command processor 100 provides such information to the asynchronous response processor 106 which in turn returns an error indication to the client program 14 The asynchronous command processor 100 may deter mine that the necessary information is not contained in the 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 local database storage 102 to provide a response to the client program 14 of the device state or that the command is a valid action Actions may include for example an increase in the train s speed or turning on off of a device In either case the valid unknown state or action command is packaged and forwarded to the command queue 104 The packagi
167. utAdd 2 Exact return type depends on language It is Cstring for C Empty string on error Return Value Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccGetName takes a decoder object ID and a pointer to a string as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pbsAccNameString to the name of the accessory Direction Description Decoder object ID Out Accessory name OKamAccPutName Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID bsAccNameString BSTR 2 In Accessory name 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Exact parameter type depends on language It is LPCSTR for Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccPutName takes a decoder object ID and BSTR as parameters It sets the symbolic accessory name to bsAccName OKamAccGetFunctionName Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iFunctionID int 0 31 2 In Function ID number 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 30 continued pbsFcnNameString BSTR 3 Out Pointer to function name 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum for this decoder is given by KamAccGetFunctionMax 3 Exact return t
168. w The present inventor came to the realization that unlike traditional distributed systems where the commands passed 0 6 270 040 1 5 through communications transport are executed nearly instantaneously by the server and then an acknowledgement is returned to the client the model railroad application involves the use of extremely slow real time interfaces between the digital command stations and the devices of the model railroad The present inventor came to the further realization that in order to increase the apparent speed of execution to the client other than using high speed com munication interfaces the resident external controller inter face 16 should receive the command and provide an acknowledgement to the client program 12 in a timely manner before the execution of the command by the digital command stations 18 Accordingly the execution of com mands provided by the resident external controlling inter face 16 to the digital command stations 18 occur in a synchronous manner such as a first in first out manner The COM and DCOM communications transport 12 between the client program 14 and the resident external controlling interface 16 is operated in an asynchronous manner namely providing an acknowledgement thereby releasing the com munications transport 12 to accept further communications prior to the actual execution of the command The combi nation of the synchronous and the asynchronous data com munication for
169. y KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamOprPutStartStation takes a logical port ID as a parameter It performs the steps necessary to start the command station OKamOprPutClearStation Parameter List Type Range Direction iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 In 1 Maximum value for this server given by Description Logical port ID 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 32 continued KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamOprPutClearStation takes a logical port ID as a parameter It performs the steps necessary to clear the command station queue OKamOprPutStopStation Parameter List Type Range Direction iLogicalPortID int 1 65535 1 In 1 Maximum value for this server given by KamPortGetMaxLogPorts Return Value Type Range Description iError short 1 Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamOprPutStopStation takes a logical port ID as a parameter It performs the steps necessary to stop the command station OKamOprPutPowerOn Parameter List Type iLogicalPortID int Description Logical port ID Range Direction 1 65535 1 In Description Logical port ID 1 Maximum value for this server giv
170. y reading the current state of the relevant device or the data rewritten to the model railroad without an error occurring In addition if an error is received in response to an attempt to program or read a device then the command may be re transmitted to the digital command station in an attempt to program the device properly If desirable multiple commands may be automatically provided to the digital command stations to increase the likelihood of programming the appropriate registers In addition the initial state of a register is likewise marked with an unknown state until data becomes available regarding its state When sending the commands to be executed by the digital command stations 18 they are preferably first checked against the read cache as previously mentioned In the event that the read cache indicates that the state is unknown such as upon initialization or an error then the command should be sent to the digital command station because the state is not known In this manner the state will at least become known even if the data in the registers is not actually changed The present inventor further determined a particular set of data that is useful for a complete representation of the state of the registers of the devices of the model railroad An invalid representation of a register indicates that the particular register is not valid for both a read and a write operation This permits the system to avoid attempting to read
171. ype depends on language It is Cstring for Empty string on error Return Value Type Range Descriptions iError short Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccGetFuncntionName takes a decoder object ID function ID and a pointer to a string as parameters It sets the memory pointed to by pbsFcnNameString to the symbolic name of the specified function OKamAccPutFunctionName Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID iFunctionID int 0 31 2 In Function ID number bsFcnNameString BSTR 3 In Function name 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Maximum for this decoder is given by KamAccGetFunctionMax 3 Exact parameter type depends on language It is LPCSTR for C Return Value Range Description iError short Error flag 1 iError 0 for success Nonzero is an error number see KamMiscGetErrorMsg KamAccPutFunctionName takes a decoder object ID function ID and a BSTR as parameters It sets the specified symbolic function name to bsFenNameString OKamAccRegFeedback Parameter List Type Range Direction Description IDecoderObjectID long 1 In Decoder object ID bsAccNode BSTR 1 In Server node name iFunctionID int 0 31 3 In Function ID number 1 Opaque object ID handle returned by KamDecoderPutAdd 2 Exact parameter type depends on language It is LPCSTR for C 3 Maximum for thi

Model train control system

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