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Hardware Hacking Toys

Internet-Controlled Train Set 164

Posted by timothy from the ain't-no-junk dept.
Eric Barch writes "Using a servo connected to a Mini SSC II and wired into a dedicated server through the serial port, the Control Our Junk team has created a working train set controlled from any computer on the Internet with a few ports open and Java installed. The trains speed can be modified on the control page, which uses a PHP script to send commands to a .NET application sitting on the server. When the .NET application recieves the PHP command it sends the data to a serial port, and in turn, changes the speed of the train. The train set is running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and is quite fun to operate from the dual webcams mounted on a top down and side view of the train set. If you would like more information, or to control the train set visit controlourjunk.com/ and take the train for a spin."
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Internet-Controlled Train Set More

Internet-Controlled Train Set

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  • Color me unimpressed. (Score:3, Informative)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:34PM (#13048753)

    Well...went and visited the site...took a whack at controlling the train...

    Q: What's more boring than controlling an electric train from a website.
    A: NOT controlling an electric train from a website.

    Yup...doesn't seem to be working. I went to check this out expecting to be unimpressed, but now I'm unimpressed and disappointed.

    I need a beer.

  • Now if it had a few exploding bridges... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dyfet ( 154716 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:35PM (#13048770) Homepage
    A remote controlled "adams family" train set would be a lot more fun :).

    • Wasn't there a Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode where the bad guy tries to intimidate Solo by handcuffing him to the switch track controls of a train set with two trains, only each train has a tank car carrying nerve gas?

      Solo keeps the trains from colliding, but the bad guy keeps cranking up the speed until Solo slips and puts the two trains on the same track, only the bad guy stops the trains because he is only trying to scare Solo at that point.

  • What's better than crashing a train? (Score:5, Funny)

    by rainmayun ( 842754 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:36PM (#13048771)
    Crashing a server and a train!
  • Something tells me with a post to Slashdot this train is about to get very scitzo, very quickly.

    And regardless, how many sadists would be trying to crash the train like myself?
    • How would you crash a train? Isn't it on rails?
      • I've driven real trains (dad's an engineer, I worked on the docks pushing cars into the dumper), and it's pretty easy to crash a train in the right area... run it full speed around a curve.

        dunno how good this would work on train sets tho :)

        • Joke (Score:1)

          by 8086ed ( 876715 )
          It was meant as a joke; everybody's using "crashing the train" and "crashing the server" interchangeably. It's funny, because you can crash a train, and you can crash a server...

          Oh, nevermind.
  • Has anyone found the controls to their webserver yet?

  • Horrible (Score:2, Funny)

    by 42Penguins ( 861511 )
    Eric Barch, I would be angry at you for posting a story for the all the multitudes of /. to control this poor man's train, probably causing it (and the server) to crash. Fortunately, it doesn't work!

  • Control Our Junk? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ajlitt ( 19055 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:39PM (#13048804)
    Worst... Site... Name... EVAR!

  • 100 (Score:2, Funny)

    by comzen ( 830240 )
    100 Change Thrust [Enter]
    100 Change Thrust [Enter]
    100 Change Thrust [Enter]
    100 Change Thrust [Enter]


    Ooops..., the Slashdot effect!
  • Slashdot + Internet controlled trains == Gomez Adams reincarnate zombies

    Yay, a smouldering heap of shiny things!

    --
    I wasn't always like this, till I found Slashdot.org

  • A bit like DriveMeInsane.com (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Peter Cooper ( 660482 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:43PM (#13048836) Homepage Journal
    DriveMeInsane.com [drivemeinsane.com] was featured here a few years ago now. I believe the guy who started it is a Slashdotter himself. He basically hooked up all his lights to the Web, as well as a number of webcams, his sprinkler system, Christmas tree lights, etc. It was pretty hardcore back in the day. He's kept it going too, although it's up and down, but pretty much was "the" great example of this genre. Only seems to have two lights now though :-(

    • Re:A bit like DriveMeInsane.com (Score:5, Informative)

      by Restil ( 31903 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @07:01PM (#13048999) Homepage
      It's still going, and there will be a lot more lights soon. I ended up buying an OLD house and I've spent all my time rennovating it, so the site has been somewhat neglected of late. Landlords and roomies are evil btw. Just saying. I'll hopefully get things going strong again in a few months.
      Thanks for the plug.

      -Restil
      • LOL...heard your wife reply to my message : "Hope your family doesn't get Slashdotted" as "Too Late". Heard your kids too. Man, after all these years on the Internet, live audio/video/remotelights switches are all still cool.

        Good job.

    • ... they aren't even bright, they can't drive him mad!

      If I want to play with a lightswitch, I'd throw a lightswitch rave here... those lights are totally unfulfilling :(

      He should change the name of his site or find some way for us to put drugs in his coffee through the Internet, I say!
    • DriveMeInsane.com was featured here a few years ago now.

      Ugh, I just went to the site and saw a live webcam of someone staring at their computer screen. Several refreshes later, little change in expression. Then I realized that I probably would look the same if I had a webcam. I'm hanging my head in shame now.

  • Yeah, right. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <spydermann.slash ... com minus distro> on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:43PM (#13048837) Homepage Journal
    Remember the guy who posted a website where you could control christmas lights [slashdot.org] from it? Turned out it was a hoax [slashdot.org].

    Call me skeptic, but I think this one's a hoax, too.
    • A clever hoax at that too...

      I, however, don't like my neighbors...so I'd gladly let people flicker the lights on all day and night. :)

      Granted, that wouldn't include the stuff inside...the constant clicking of the X-10 modules would surely get me going into a murderous rage.
    • Here's the complete christmas hoax writeup [komar.org] ... would be kinda fun to do it for real this year [komar.org] - think anyone would believe it?!? ;-)

      Agent Green correctly points out a few of the real world issues that make doing it for a real a bit of a challenge.

    • Cristmas lights remind me of the "chat live with this naked babe" videos. There is no live thing on the other end, it's just a set of pictures taken for each "dropdown-box" scenario. When your options can be fit into a dropdown box, then the tree of possibilities can be fully spanned and an image provided for. Now on the other hand, if you had a freeform text input, that would get displayed in the cam picture, that's a whole different ballpark.
      • If you know of a large LCD-type sign board that is USB and/or IP addressable, drop me a note - I would LOVE to hang this on the outside of my house for christmas 2005 [komar.org] and allow Internet folks to provide text inputs ... kinda along the lines of this site [indigo.org] where you can enter text to show up on his screen saver.

  • Schoolwork (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jason1729 ( 561790 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:43PM (#13048839)
    The real-time programming course at the University of Waterloo has a model train set we write a control program form.

    It's a lot of fun for the first couple of days until it sinks in how hard it's going to be to write a real-time OS and a GUI-based train management program for it in 3 months.

    One of the tests is to keep adding trains to the tracks while it's running to see how much it can handle. If your program crashes, the trains crash.

    I took the course in 1999 so if any of what I said sounds wrong, it's because it changed since then.

    • Re:Schoolwork (Score:1, Troll)

      by p2sam ( 139950 )
      I remember there was a song for cs452 on Buddy's site :) http://buddy.bbsg.ca/pics/cs452/pos-code.txt [buddy.bbsg.ca] Ode To My Code ============== (To the tune of "Ode to My Car" by Adam Sandler) Lyrics corrupted by Marc "Slackmaster" Fletcher and "His Alcoholiness" Pete Strachan. Here we go Piece of shit code We've Microsoft code That fuckin' pile of shit Won't move trains very far Out code's a big piece of shit 'Cause the kernel's fucking shot The context switch is fucking broken And the clock ain't doing so hot
    • Isn't it the University of Waterloo that did this, like, what, 10 years ago? Perhaps not ten, but AT LEAST 5, more like 7 or 8 years ago.

      "Ooh, a train set you can control, how, 1995! "

  • offtopic ... but can't go unsaid (Score:3, Funny)

    by apachetoolbox ( 456499 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:45PM (#13048852) Homepage
    To whomever thought up that websites color and menu... god damn you. god damn you to hell.

  • This isn't the first (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I remember a web controled model train set several years back, does anyone remember where it was or what happened to it?

  • Odd combination? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tony Hoyle ( 11698 ) <tmh@nodomain.org> on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:46PM (#13048864) Homepage
    .NET powered by PHP?

    If you're using .NET just make an aspx and control things that way... if you're not there's half a dozen ways via PHP (perl+XMLRPC springs to mind).

    Mixing them just seems to be a headache, since making MS code integrate with non-MS code is always harder than just sticking to one or the other.

    • Re:Odd combination? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Sliptwixt ( 606116 )
      My guess is that they're calling .NET web services from the php scripts in which case there is no real "integration" to be concerned with. (kind of the whole idea behind web services)
    • Why? Being able to call a program by name - via system, exec, or whatever - and passing an argument or 12 is easy to do with just about any language. And a program that is written to properly deal with arguments passed on the command line (or proper substitution for such) shouldn't really care what method it is envoked with.

      (disclaimer - not a professional programmer, but i've been playing with a handful of languages since TRS-80 basic was new)
    • I'm more surprised by the combination of .NET and Java. Did a PHB tell them to get as many buzzword technologies in there as possible?

  • This is cool WHY? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kisielk ( 467327 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:47PM (#13048877)
    Wow, it's extremely difficult to send data on the serial port of a PC to control a couple of servos.. and a web interface..

    Maybe it's interesting for some train geeks, but I think that's about it. The camera isn't even mounted ON the train. That might at least make it mildly more entertaining. Yeah, some internet controlled hacks are cool (especially the christmas lights one, doubly so because it was fake :) but I don't think this is one of them.
    • You miserable cynical fucker. So what if it's not the hardest thing in the world. I bet whoever made this put a lot of time and effort into it, and wanted to provide people with some entertainment, and all you can do is bash it.

      I know if I managed to send data on a serial port to operate a train set via the Internet, I'd be proud of it, and I'd want to let people play with it. What the hell does anyone gain from your whining? At least he did something, all you produce is fucking moaning.
    • while this is cliche to you, io younger peope this may be the firt time, so they may be interested.
    • Wow, it's extremely difficult to send data on the serial port of a PC to control a couple of servos..

      This gives me an idea. Remember those old "control circuit LEDS with your computer!" experiments?
      I wonder... there has got to be some electronic kit or something with USB, any ideas?
  • Sorry, but this is old news. If you guys have ever explored the mini r/c desktop rover's site (product description/photo at: http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/5776/ [thinkgeek.com] ) they had an online tech demo (through java of course) where you stood in line and got to control the rc car. It was stuck in a box with a bunch of ramps and obstacles that you could see with the camera attached to it. You were able to steer and push objects within the box. They even took off the top of the box and let you see the crumm

  • remote fire starting exploit! (Score:4, Funny)

    by hilaryduff ( 894727 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:49PM (#13048890)
    10 motor 1 20 motor 0 30 goto 10
  • How come nobody or at least from what I have found modded a computer into a train?
    Pull the power from the tracks, wireless card for networking, put a controller on the locomotive for the onboard computer to controll, as the faster the train moves the more cooling power it needs. Tie train speed and cpu speed or some other stat into trains control.
    Thinking would have to go with a flash card based filesytem unless you can handle powering a hd. Could just put hd in a seperate car from the main computer.
  • Whenever somebody hooks something up to be controlled over the web I have to wonder why they bother? I mean, I understand the geek fun factor and everything, but why make it available to the public? It's just going to suck. Something like this is only fun to control if there are only a couple people on the site at a time and well, it's something so cool that there's no way there will only be a couple people on at a time!

  • the whole internet controlling a trainset means... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:55PM (#13048938)
    ... MULTI-TRACK DRIFTING! [photobucket.com]

    (Sorry, I just couldn't resist mentioning one of the most famous 4chan memes. It's what instantly came to mind.)

  • ..... Pictures it took to do this this time *grin* Unfortunately .... I can't seem to get the pictures to change...

  • Doesn't everyone do this? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hixie ( 116369 ) <ian@hixie.ch> on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:58PM (#13048973) Homepage
    I assumed everyone with a train set did this. My own train set (a Märklin Digital HO set of C track that I take out and build into various layouts when I get the inclination) is run by a TCP/IP server speaking a custom line-based protocol, and I've written a Web interface and an IRC bot interface to speak to it, as well as a couple of perl scripts that just run the trains around on specific schedules (using sensors in the track to detect when the train gets to a particular station).

    So when I have my layout out people can just come to visit with their wireless laptops and immediately can control everything on the layout (trains, points, decouplers, etc).

    I'm in Norway. I once had someone try to play a simplified Timesaver layout from Sweden, over IRC. That was not a pretty sight.

    Admittedly I don't have a Web cam, which I assume is the attraction here.

    (It's actually really hard to run any train set remotely, simply due to latency issues. Two seconds can easily be the difference between a neat arrival in a station and overshooting and hitting a freight train doing operations in a nearby yard.)
    • Just out of curiousity, do you know any sites that provide a primer on how to link a train set to the internet / remote interface?

      Your review sounds quite interesting, but it would be rather nice to know where to start...
    • It's not exactly new. Years ago, Dr Solomon's had a trainset on their boardroom table that you could control from their website.

      It was part of their whole 'trains' theme, which you'll remember if you went to any computer shows around that time.

      The reason for the trains, btw, was because their product was 'multi-platform'. I believe nobody ever got that link without it being explained to them.
  • There has been for several years now a digital standard http://www.dcc.info/ [dcc.info] for controlling trains: it would have been far more impressive had they implemented this instead of a servo turning a crank. They could have even done this with off the shelf hardware. http://www.digitrax.com/menu_computercontrol.php [digitrax.com]
    • i think that by today's standards, even dcc is a bit out of date.

      done today, i'd say the trains, turnouts, and other accessories would be controlled by 802.11 modules. (1 MB per sec would be more than enought for the simple functions found in model trains.) 802.11 would be more reliable than sending instructions through the track, easier to program, and save some wiring and complexity out of most dcc setups.
  • But at least you can still control it! Use the Cell Phone Interface [serveftp.com]

  • So It's Come Full Circle (Score:4, Funny)

    by Comatose51 ( 687974 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @07:12PM (#13049070) Homepage
    Hackerdom takes some of its roots from the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club [wikipedia.org]. Now after many decades, the hackers return to the model trains.

    Speaking of model trains, what do breasts and model trains have in common? They've both meant for kids but it's adults who end up playing with them.

    Breasts, hackers, and model trains all in one post! It's like the Slashdot Triple Crown!

  • "You will be able to do things such as... turn on and off lights,..." anything else then ?

  • They put this on Slashdot? (Score:5, Funny)

    by neo ( 4625 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @07:21PM (#13049143)
    If they don't have 100,000 trains then there's going to be some really f*cked up action on those tracks. What the hell where they thinking? Three russian hacker groups are already fighting for control of the B & O Switch engine 5006 Diesel, and half of Berkley is trying to ram the American Flyer # 613 GN Box Car off the table.

    Bastards.
  • (in case they get slasdotted...)
  • If I were going to do a train set web UI, I would hope to make something at least as interesting and entertaining as this [tu-freiberg.de] one. Its fun to control, easy to watch, and no .Net; just php.
  • many, many times.

    I did it using C almost ten years ago, and I dobt I was on the fore front.
  • And soon we will be able to controll real trains form our homes. [insulators.com]

    Technology marches on
    -2600, 22:1
  • as an ex model maker ...tho of 1/72 scale airplanes (not railways!) i never built straight from kits but researched for mods and colour schemes to make an interesting model...guess i do the same now with the tech stuff and graphic design..come on geeks unite with those older scale railway buffs/geeks... the railway is a little lacking in any creativity (and the tech running it is a little to so so!)...a guy in the village where my M and D live has a track running round his garden with viaducts, landscapes
  • I've played with an over-the-net train set for 3 years now in my free time. Try something new.

  • The two internet toasters (1988) by Romkey and Hackett evolved during the next couple of years. In on direction a network controlled LEGO robot was used to insert and withdraw the toast.

    In the other direction an entire SNMP controlled trail layout was created by Peter de Vris of FTP Software.

    These were all seen, working, at the Interop shows of the late 1980's and early 1990s.
  • What a trainwreck!

  • "...while the lights are real, nobody was really turning the lights on and off [komar.org] - the webcam and webcontrol don't really exist on the house, only on the website..."

    I'm still waiting for the inevitable Google Earth hoax or prank (satellite-readable message).
  • Come to my web, says spider to fly. Play with my train set, give it a try! if at first i don't succeed, you will try agian...

    I wonder how many zombies now? might you check? but how?

    For windows users you might rely on other to tell you no lies. *nix admins are reading their files, in a minute.

    RE: to this to tell what you know.

    Thanks.
    \/.

  • Model trains and open source (Score:3, Informative)

    by buss_error ( 142273 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @11:46PM (#13050608) Homepage Journal
    WARNING: There is no known cure once a person has bitten by the model railroading bug.

    Model railroading has gotten quite a bit of tech to it.

    Used to be that you plonked the engine on the track, pushed some DC, and off you went.

    That was then, this is now.

    Digital Command Control (DCC) by Digitrax [digitrax.com], EasyDCC [cvpusa.com], some pretty cool electronics interfacing stuff by Dr. Chubb (over at JLC Enterprises [jlcenterprises.net], or you can go with Protrak's [protrak.cc] system, Grapevine [protrak.cc], and WOOT! WOOT! Some Open Source stuff from JMRI [sourceforge.net] (and see the quote about controlling someone's layout from 600 miles away...)

    You want sound [soundtraxx.com] with that? No Problem!

    Yeah, model railroading has gotten high tech alright. No, you can't run my stuff over the internet, yes, I could if I wanted to let you. No, you'll have to come to an open house sometime. If you think you might like to get involved with it, check out The NMRA [nmra.org] and find a club local [infoharvest.ca] to your area... but the hobby shop might be a better bet.

  • Slashdotters not only crashed the site, they crashed the train.

    You are all the wrong kind of engineers.

    I THINK I CAN, I KNOW I CAN...
  • Our own layout is fully computer controlled, and can be operated over the internet (though for practical reasons, we don't let people run it through our web page, and probably never will). That includes over 600 feet of track divided into 120 independent blocks and 151 electrically operated turnouts. This control system was installed in January 2002, replacing an earlier system built in 1966 from surplus telephone relays.

    Speaking from firsthand experience, there are a couple of problems with allowing gen
  • With articles posted like this one, people wonder why that previous article [slashdot.org], the one about wasting time at work had such high statistics... we might be able to get more work done in less time than before, but with things like this and Google Earth [google.com] to play with, is it any wonder?

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