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Al Lowe on model trains, funny deaths and working with Disney

117 points by thelok 2 days ago | 30 comments

jfengel 2 days ago

It might be time for HN to shift to a font that distinguishes better between "Al" and "AI".

baxtr 2 days ago

Especially confusing when there’s the word model up there as well

Spire42 23 hours ago

And “trains”.

lynndotpy 21 hours ago

"Gemini, Lowe, whatever. The model trains and works with Disney? I see, but I want to learn more about the funny deaths, what the hell?"

I also vouch for a font that differentiates lowercase-L and uppercase-i.

smokel 2 days ago

AI is a hype, Al Lowe is a legend.

mathgeek 23 hours ago

How dare you call Weird Al hype?

jacquesm 16 hours ago

> I got my first model train when I was 2 years old, and my dad wouldn’t let me play with it. So he ran it around the Christmas tree and I had to watch.

I wonder how many kids had this happen to them.

kirubakaran 13 hours ago

I’d say at least one

bigstrat2003 2 days ago

That was a great interview. I didn't realize model trains had so much computer stuff going on inside them these days! Maybe I should get into the hobby now that I'm an adult with space at home and disposable income.

dhosek 2 days ago

Yeah, apparently the whole controlling the train by the voltage¹ and polarity of the electricity in the rails has been replaced with little digital chips in the locomotives that let you control each locomotive independently and not have to have them in separate zones on the layout. I have a bunch of stuff in the basement from when I was thinking of getting back into the hobby around 2001 and then, well, 2001 happened and put that all on hold. Maybe sometime in the future or maybe I’ll just sell it all off.

⸻

1. Or is it current? I have no idea,

kylegordon 24 hours ago

And that's just DCC. You can also add in I2C, MQTT, Canbus, Ethernet, BiDiB, Modbus, etc the list goes on

Have a gander at https://www.jmri.org/help/en/html/hardware/index.shtml#netwo... for a good list of protocols

TacticalCoder 24 hours ago

> Yeah, apparently the whole controlling the train by the voltage¹ and polarity of the electricity in the rails has been replaced with little digital chips in the locomotives that let you control each locomotive independently and not have to have them in separate zones on the layout.

Can I reuse the tracks (not the locomotives, just the track) from my Marklin HO and switch to digital trains? Sounds cool.

nic547 9 hours ago

Assuming you have the yellowish, metal tracks (M-Track) it should work more or less.

Electrically the tracks with the connectors for power might have capacitors for radio interference reasons, they're unnecessary for and cause problems with the digital signals.

With regards to the wheel-track geometry, Märklin hasn't changed that much and most modern rolling stock compatible with the "Märklin system" (commonly referred to as "3L"/"AC") should work on M-track. Only the small "industrial radius" tracks might be a bit problematic in general and longer cars can hit turnout signals (mostly a problem with long passenger cars that aren't shortened to 1/100 or 1/93.5 scale). Some manufacturers have created "universal" wheelsets, those might be prone to derailments.

Digital trains need clean rails for proper operation, m-track is more vulnerable to rust and really needs proper rust removal, especially after not being used for a while.|

AFAIK it's not that rare to use m-track for storage yards and "non-visible" track rather than throwing it away.

dhosek 22 hours ago

Yep. And you can simplify your wiring since you only need to put in insulators where there would be a potential short (e.g., a Y loop) and not split the layout into zones for operation.

dhosek 22 hours ago

Also adding the chip to a locomotive is a pretty simple thing so you can retrofit older locomotives (it’s also possible to mix non-digital locomotives with digital locomotives).

nic547 12 hours ago

GP mentioned Märklin H0, so Y-Loops aren't a Problem anyway because both wheels have the same potential, it's a modified 3rail system with a bunch of studs in the middle as a 3rd rail.

baxtr 18 hours ago

You absolutely should. Start small and see if you like it then expand.

You don’t want to be 80 and saying: I should have at least tried!

mrighele 2 days ago

I never realized that Al Lowe was involved with Donald Duck’s Playground, I loved it as a child. I guess I have to be thankful to him for two things now.

sgt 12 hours ago

He got so associted with Leisure Suit Larry that some people thought he was Larry. Quite the opposite (his own words) - he's happily married 50+ years and just loves technology and creation.

throaway146 2 days ago

I used to play it on my dad's mac at work (which he hated, it was a non-computer role and management forced a switch from Windows to Mac). It had a great look that does seem similar to LLL.

Of course on those machines, most of my time was spent dealing with the "insert disk for the program you were previously using" bug!

deepthaw 2 days ago

I first really started to learn how to use computers playing Leisure Suit Larry on a friend's dad's computer. Started with copying save-games to/from floppy disks, to using MS-DOS in general, to BASIC, etc. and so forth.

It's interesting how much of the humor in those games flew way over my head yet I still had a blast playing them. And looking back as an adult, the "risque" stuff was tame as hell but still fun. Sigh, good times.

tombert 2 days ago

Al Lowe is actually a pretty nice dude.

I’m not entirely sure why I did this, but when I was an adjunct for a few semesters, I emailed him for advice on teaching since he did the transition from teacher->programmer and I did the opposite.

He responded back very quickly with very helpful advice [1] and was very understanding and nice. I like him.

[1] I don’t want to share the emails since they are a bit personal, but the TL;DR was that he recommended I consider finding some training on how to be a teacher.

t1234s 20 hours ago

Anyone who played LSL1 on a 5 1/4 floppy disk please stand up.

js4ever 2 days ago

Al model train ... I was not expecting that article... To much AI in my life

linkjuice4all 2 days ago

Much like Factorio - bringing too much tech/automation into your hobbies (such as model trains) just turns a fun weekend hobby into "work". It's really cool to see the progress with digital controls in model trains (read up about Neil Young and Lionel [0]) but I don't want to have to ask AI to rewrite my train handling config files just to get some little motor to spin.

[0] https://thrasherswheat.org/tfa/trains-neil-young-1993.htm

jclulow 18 hours ago

> I don't want to have to ask AI to rewrite my train handling config files just to get some little motor to spin.

I reckon you could probably still figure out how to just edit the text file. And if it's not fun to do that, then, surely it's just not the right hobby?

sodapopcan 2 days ago

Ya, I was wondering if this made it to the top because people though "Al" was "AI," heh.

em-bee 2 days ago

does it really matter? it's a good topic either way. actually it's even better because it isn't about AI.

sodapopcan 10 hours ago

Sure doesn't! Was just a funny thought (depending on your definition of funny, of course).

unixhero 2 days ago

What about Larry 4 Roar and Al