Wallingford Industrial Rail Ltd. 7 January 2024 - Rik Bennett's Freight Manager at WIRL

[Ianm]

Hi All

Having watched many of Rik's Peckforton videos and following his article in Garden Rail this month - I downloaded his Freight Manager software and had a go at the WIRL on a chilly afternoon.

I found the software really easy to use and quite intuitive after a quick read of his blog https://riksrailway.blogspot.com/2008/1 ... ation.html .

My first thoughts - it would be nice to have more than 8 locations, although I recognize that would make the matrix for each wagon quick tricky to fill in. I wanted to create each road of the storage sidings as a separate location so the coaches could be directed to the longest road each time - i.e. by assigning them a zero chance of being sent to the other roads.

In the interim, it's now time to start fixing the couplings and buffers on the rolling stock; and the control system and track; and then perhaps by summer a relaxing running session may be possible.

Thank you Rik for another great addition to the WIRL (and I suspect to many other railways too!).



I realized that YT automatically disables comments when the video is labelled as "Made for kids". I have changed the classification so comments are now enabled (I think) - so now when there are no comments it's probably just because no-one thinks it worthwhile.....

[ge_rik]

Glad you've been finding the program useful, Ian. As you know I've moved on from that version to one which runs on my Psion, but if you spot any bugs or have suggestions I'm always interested in feedback.

Rik

[drewzero1]

The link isn't working for me, but this seems to be it for anyone else who's curious: Progress Report 16 - Freight Operation

Might be drifting a bit off topic here but I'm curious about the Psion version, Rik. I always wanted one of those but I settled on an HP Omnibook instead. Is your software specific to the Psion or would it just run on any old DOS palmtop?

[Ianm]

The link isn't working for me, but this seems to be it for anyone else who's curious: Progress Report 16 - Freight Operation

Might be drifting a bit off topic here but I'm curious about the Psion version, Rik. I always wanted one of those but I settled on an HP Omnibook instead. Is your software specific to the Psion or would it just run on any old DOS palmtop?

Hi

You are quire right - not sure how come I got the wrong web link - many apologies .

I am using Rik's windows version - I am fairly sure the PSion will be quite different although I think he uses some clever software that outputs code for multiple platforms, I used to love my Psion - until it fell in a canal one day and was never quite the same after that

[ge_rik]

The link isn't working for me, but this seems to be it for anyone else who's curious: Progress Report 16 - Freight Operation

Might be drifting a bit off topic here but I'm curious about the Psion version, Rik. I always wanted one of those but I settled on an HP Omnibook instead. Is your software specific to the Psion or would it just run on any old DOS palmtop?

Sorry, the Psion programming language is quite specific to Psion and a small range of other devices. I did a version to run on Google Sheets which might also run on Excel with a tiny bit of tweaking, if that's any use?

Rik

[drewzero1]

I spotted the post with the source code Rik. Some day when I have more time than sense I'll see if I can port it to BASIC or some other portable language. (I'll start a new thread if I ever get to it... carry on!)

[ge_rik]

I spotted the post with the source code Rik. Some day when I have more time than sense I'll see if I can port it to BASIC or some other portable language. (I'll start a new thread if I ever get to it... carry on!)

Good luck. It's a fairly simple program, but even those can become quite fiddly when trying to convert from one coding to another

Rik

[GAP]

Bit of thread drift for a moment.
I have just downloaded Rik's program and will be evaluating (having a play) it.
All part of the grand plan for the stage 6 enlargement of the layout.
On another note I asked an electrical engineering student if he could mentor in learning Python and his reply "just use GPT Chat it will write and code you want" king of defeats the purpose.

[drewzero1]

Thanks Rik. I started taking a look and at first blush it had seemed like it might be some dialect of BASIC, or at least intelligible enough from that background.

...
On another note I asked an electrical engineering student if he could mentor in learning Python and his reply "just use GPT Chat it will write and code you want" king of defeats the purpose.

Ooh, don't get me started on all that hype. I minored in comp sci with an emphasis on software engineering so I'm a bit biased toward human coders anyway, and I still think it's very much worth learning to code rather than blindly trusting whatever garbage the machine spews out. If nothing else, you at least can get an idea of what the machine is doing, how it 'thinks', etc... I'm down to chat Python any time you like

[Ianm]

Thanks Rik. I started taking a look and at first blush it had seemed like it might be some dialect of BASIC, or at least intelligible enough from that background.

...
On another note I asked an electrical engineering student if he could mentor in learning Python and his reply "just use GPT Chat it will write and code you want" king of defeats the purpose.

Ooh, don't get me started on all that hype. I minored in comp sci with an emphasis on software engineering so I'm a bit biased toward human coders anyway, and I still think it's very much worth learning to code rather than blindly trusting whatever garbage the machine spews out. If nothing else, you at least can get an idea of what the machine is doing, how it 'thinks', etc... I'm down to chat Python any time you like

I'm with you Rik - at various points in my past I was either coding as part of my work (or supervising coders developing stuff for me). Either way, knowing enough of the language was essential to avoid going down deep rabbit holes. That said, I am playing with Arduino's and ESP32Now as potential additions to the WIRL universe. ChatGPT is a great way of checking that the code and wiring I develop is vaguely in-line with what others are writing - it's nice to have an idea confirmed without smoke emitting from the boards!

I haven't ventured into Python yet, but if you do start a chat about, please include me in.

[ge_rik]

Im not clear how GPT Chat assists with coding. Does it write the code or check the code after you've written it?

Rik

[drewzero1]

Im not clear how GPT Chat assists with coding. Does it write the code or check the code after you've written it?

Rik

It can be used to write the code (Github Copilot for example) but I have also recently heard that it might be able to 'translate' existing programs from one language or library to another equivalent one. Given these language models' propensity to just make up convincing facts when they don't really know the answer, I'd trust their programming about as far as I could throw it.

[Ianm]

Im not clear how GPT Chat assists with coding. Does it write the code or check the code after you've written it?

Rik

It can be used to write the code (Github Copilot for example) but I have also recently heard that it might be able to 'translate' existing programs from one language or library to another equivalent one. Given these language models' propensity to just make up convincing facts when they don't really know the answer, I'd trust their programming about as far as I could throw it.

ChatGPT will write code for a specific language in answer to question - obviously the more precise the question the better the code provided. But, as Drew noted - its best to be cautious before committing to the answers provided. However, so far, it has provided workable code for the things I have tried to do. It does more than a compiler, i.e it will generate code rather than simply checking the syntax and structure. As a simple example:

I asked ChatGPT the equivalent of “Hello World” as in “ Provide arduino code to turn on led on pin 4”


The code returned was:
==>

const int ledPin = 4; // Define the pin number for the LED

void setup() {
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // Set the LED pin as an output
}

void loop() {
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); // Turn on the LED
delay(1000); // Wait for 1 second
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); // Turn off the LED
delay(1000); // Wait for 1 second
}


<==


It also provides a short explanation

==>

This code sets up pin 4 as an output, then in the loop function, it turns the LED on for 1 second and off for 1 second in a continuous loop. Connect the positive leg of the LED to pin 4 and the negative leg to ground.

<==

More complex questions result in more code and thus greater need to understand what it is returning.

[ge_rik]

Interesting. Maybe in twenty years' time, you'll (not we'll unfortunately), be able to say to your computer device (whatever it may look like then) something like - "Write a computer program which will manage freight handling from and to five stations on a semi-randomised basis" and it will come up with something similar to one of my programs.

Somehow, it takes the fun out of it.

Rik
PS - Maybe someone at Fujitsu said to its equivalent in 1996 - "Write a program to make a complete hash of managing Post Office transactions" .......

[Ianm]

Interesting. Maybe in twenty years' time, you'll (not we'll unfortunately), be able to say to your computer device (whatever it may look like then) something like - "Write a computer program which will manage freight handling from and to five stations on a semi-randomised basis" and it will come up with something similar to one of my programs.

Somehow, it takes the fun out of it.

Rik
PS - Maybe someone at Fujitsu said to its equivalent in 1996 - "Write a program to make a complete hash of managing Post Office transactions" .......

I think you are correct - it will completely take the fun out of the process of problem solving/programming. But we can still have fun for the foreseeable future doing our own thing.

[GAP]

As a complete novice at programming I have been working my way through a course to learn python (all that I have looked at are aimed at Data Science students)as I want to make a train location indication board using a raspberry pi.
The idea being train passes a detector and that is displayed on a schematic on a screen so that a train can be followed round the layout, once I got that set up I would like to move to multiple trains but that adds the complexity of identifying each train.
My biggest stumbling block with writing programs either in Picaxe (one of the easiest to learn I have found) or Python has been not being able to get the logic in English translated into the code, I know what I want to do but just cannot seem to master getting it written.
By using GPT Chat I may be able to ask questions get some code back then go and look at the manuals to see what I get back eg is line 100 a variable or something else, a learning aid if you wish.
Maybe I am being to far to ambitious and somebody has already done what I am trying to do for model trains (the real ones have been done) who knows.
Planning and building the layout extension is consuming all my time at the moment but looking at Rik's freight handling program and playing with Chat GPT could be good side activities.

[ge_rik]

I tend to go for quite high level programming languages. The coding for LiveCode (formerly HyperTalk), is almost conversational. I've just about got my head around Arduino coding which is based on C++ but, like you, I sometimes struggle with the logic behind the syntax. Some of it seems counter-intuitive.

I well remember having similar problems with LOGO which by all accounts was based on reverse Polish notation - presumably it would make perfect sense to a Pole...

Rik

[philipy]

it would make perfect sense to a Pole...

or maybe two short planks?