At 10:31 AM -0700 5/14/02, Mike Davison wrote:
> >Lots more decoders<
Of course the really best would be convince manufactures that DecoderPro
is the (only) way to go and they would create the files.
Perhaps if 'we' created a standard XML format (schema?) to describe decoders
and created a central Internet-accessible DB of those XML definitions we
could get more buy in. A common format would allow the central DB to be used
by all decoder programming tools and would allow decoder manufacturers to
produce a single description file.
I'd like to see manufacturers providing comprehensive info on their decoders. Even if we still have to make up the files, having good info would really help.
For example, Debbie Ames of Lenz has been very helpful in getting me info on the current Lenz decoders, and Jim Scorse of NCE has promptly answered every time I needed clarification. With that kind of help, making the files is a reasonable task.
I've backed off a little in my hopes that people would make decoder files for all the decoder they're interested in. There are a few people who've done that, including some on this list, but it's harder than I originally imagined it would be. It's taken some really dedicated people to succeed with new files. In part this is because there are just _so_ _many_ options in modern decoders; some of them have over 100 settings to encode! In part it's because the XML format is so verbose & redundant; it's hard to work on the files with just an editor.
In the long term, we need a tool to make creating those files easier. I'm not sure how to do it, but something where you can just sit down and fill out some forms. The problem is providing enough flexibility to map all the possibilities we see in the marketplace. This might be a good project for somebody who'd like to play with some Java code...
In the shorter term, I'd like to find some time to lobby manufacturers for more information. I'm hoping to track down some of the people involved at the NMRA convention & train show this summer; maybe talking in person will help.
Bob
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Bob Jacobsen (Bob_Jacobsen@..., 510-486-7355, fax 510-495-2957)
Bob Jacobsen