But if you have found your way here, I either met you at the National Show or someone has passed this URL on... And you are aware of my interest in integrating PC's into the garden train layout.
No, I do not have a PC running my layout.. Heck, I only started working on it in April. If you would like to take a look at my progress, follow this link. sheepdogs train No, I have not installed a PC automated garden railroad... but I do have 24 years of experience integrating PC's into automated manufacturing operations.
I can't wait to use that experience to come up with some nifty things for the garden railroad. It may or may not have signal lights.... you want them, you got them. You want to control the turnouts, Ok, How? An external switch? A mouse click? Want to count laps and change operations based on that?? Want to look for an on-coming train??? Sure.
How about a map of your layout on the PC with interactive train/signal/track conditions? Alright, but let's put some pizzazz in this layout.. Audio!
Have a saw mill on that upper pond??? Alright lets put a small speaker there and randomly play saw mill sounds... Blacksmith in town??? Ok some random hammering. How about some water birds down by the lake???? Church bells on the hour????
Maybe some animal sounds up by the farm????
Train noises down in the yard???
You get the idea.... Spread your speakers out... Give it a try... Big file!! Audio -2mb- Ok, that's good for daylight hours... but things would change as evening falls..... And so on...
But what I really want to do is 4 channels (speakers) or 8 channels... or 16 channels... think about it... :)
Now think live video...
Live video from the train?... On the PC? ok
Live video of the trains from hidden cameras?.... split screen... ok
Switched live video from various cameras?... Sure
Web CAM? Web broadcast?.... You bet. Have your grandkids see your new additions over the Web.
Want the run the whole operation on a timer??? Maybe a bunch of ramdom timers... Or light sensor??? Audio activated events?.. Video activited events?...
Or do you just want a touch screen with all of the options at you fingertips???
Lets say this is a 1890's theme....
The saw mill would shutdown, the waterbird noise would switch to frogs, maybe a few loons. Honkytonk would start to come from the saloon... maybe some tom-toms would fire up in the Indian village. Coyotes in the distance... Big File!!! Night Time -3.2mb-
Not too bad for 2 channel stereo... I can seperate the sounds into left, right and, depending on speaker locations, in the middle sort of...
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Last modified: 2 July 2002