DCC-EX Open Source Model Railroading
Clarendon Auditorium | Tue 14 Mar 3:45 p.m.–4:30 p.m.
Presented by
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Paul is a second-generation programmer and a hacker in many dimensions including technology, startups, management and mental health. Starting with electronics and programming at the tender age of 13 in 1977, Paul jokes that he's had just about every role in 38 years in the IT industry. As a technologist committed to open source, Paul is a Linux kernel contributor (2.4.x, MIPS R3000 port) with a long term interest in embedded computing, firmware and operating systems development. Despite crossing over to the dark side and joining management as CEO at 29, and becoming an angel investor/board chairman at 34, Paul remains grounded in understanding the human side of technology and its applications.
A firm believer in ethical business practices, supporting diversity in all its forms, and particularly the use of technology to better humanity, Paul currently devotes his time to consulting to medical research charities, helping others, and working on open source model railway technology.
Abstract
Open source is an old idea within model railroading – with designs for interesting control, automation and animation circuits for model railway layouts being shared in the community for many decades prior to open source or open hardware appearing as formal concepts.
The DCC-EX project began as an attempt to provide a truly budget friendly, standards compliant, open source platform for controlling model railways. It now has an international team of experienced software engineers and new to programming hobbyists contributing to a platform with significant innovation and feature sets beyond commercial offerings. The DCC-EX team’s focus remains on ensuring accessibility for even the most modest model railroading budget.
This presentation will also cover the challenges presented to developers of open source software on sometimes poorly supported embedded environments, and in dealing with vendor specific extensions to supposedly open model railway protocol standards. Oh, and we’ll have a lot of fun looking at ways one can control, automate and animate model trains as well.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlGL9-v5OAQ
LA Archive: http://mirror.linux.org.au/pub/everythingopen/2023/clarendon_auditorium/Tuesday/DCCEX_Open_Source_Model_Railroading_2.webm
Open source is an old idea within model railroading – with designs for interesting control, automation and animation circuits for model railway layouts being shared in the community for many decades prior to open source or open hardware appearing as formal concepts. The DCC-EX project began as an attempt to provide a truly budget friendly, standards compliant, open source platform for controlling model railways. It now has an international team of experienced software engineers and new to programming hobbyists contributing to a platform with significant innovation and feature sets beyond commercial offerings. The DCC-EX team’s focus remains on ensuring accessibility for even the most modest model railroading budget. This presentation will also cover the challenges presented to developers of open source software on sometimes poorly supported embedded environments, and in dealing with vendor specific extensions to supposedly open model railway protocol standards. Oh, and we’ll have a lot of fun looking at ways one can control, automate and animate model trains as well. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlGL9-v5OAQ LA Archive: http://mirror.linux.org.au/pub/everythingopen/2023/clarendon_auditorium/Tuesday/DCCEX_Open_Source_Model_Railroading_2.webm