POLL: Are YOU a Doctor of Trainzology?

J

JonMyrlennBailey

Well-known member
Are you even a computer science major or a software developer/engineer?

How much do you know about Trainz and what makes it tick?

I feel that JCitron and Dave Snow might be worthy of the title of "Doctor of Trainzology"
if no one else here is.

I ask because I feel many Trainzers have in-depth background in programming.

I don't. Not by a damn sight! I am a major in computer networking: a sort of geek
but how Trainz works is totally Greek to me. Trainz can malfunction for reasons
only known to God Himself at times.

By the way, what are the troubleshooters of software known as in the software
development industry anyway?

One theory I have is that much of Trainz content is contributed by independent
creators. Much of it might not be tested thoroughly by the Trainz proprietor
before acceptance at the download station or packaging in any Trainz edition.

This is why Trainz is so error-prone, mostly. There is no uniform standards for excellence
and quality control in regards to every piece of Trainz content submitted.

I wish software and its associated content would be sold or distributed to the consumer with the same scrutiny
and excellence as the Swiss have for their watches.

I wish quality control in the whole computer/IT/gaming/software industry would be paramount.

For example, if a new locomotive or track trigger content item were to be submitted for consideration, it
should be thoroughly tested in-house, for many man-hours by the software vendor.

Apple Computers were once so sterling, so Rolls-Royce grade, because of Steve Job's pickiness. Apple computers HARDWARE and SOFTWARE were kept all in-house to ensure everything works the way it should.

I wish all Trainz content would simply work the way it should. I wish Trainz were Rolls-Royce grade.
The very best gaming software in the world.

Ideally, Trainz editions and all CONTENT should also be kept in-house.

What even the IT industry needs is a sense of old-fashioned pride in workmanship.

You software specialist people might know the innards of Trainz real well, like the palms of your hands: the "nuts and bolts" of the software that makes it all go. :confused:


I would like to learn as much as possible about what makes Trainz tick inside unless

that is a proprietary trade secret.:eek:


Trainz is a great mystery to me as to what really makes it work.

Sorry, if my thread is so long-winded.
 
Last edited:
LOL! Jon, the last time I dabbled in PROGRAMMING ( and this is the God's honest truth) was when I had my Commodore 64!! I created a game or two back then.

No, I wouldn't say I'm a Doctor of Trainzology but I'm flattered you would think so.

Cheers,

Dave Snow
 
Yo Dave:

I had 2 C-64's, 2 C-128's, and 2 C-128D's. I was quite adept at machine language programming on the C-128 series but I couldn't write my name in any modern programming language.

As to being a Doctor of Trainzology - not in a million years (tho I go to one now and then, lol).

Ben
 
Ah - C64s. I used to have one of those which I did some programming on. I still do a bit of programming as and when I need to using the BASIC language and occasionally in PHP.

Shane
 
All appearances aside, I think we are just muddling through. Some have just been at it longer than others. You may wish for "Rolls-Royce grade" but are you prepared to pay Rolls-Royce prices? As they say TANSTAAFL.
 
I began with a Radio Shack Tandy TRS80 in (not surprisingly) 1980 - which I make (after using my calculator!) 37 years ago. This was a Level Two machine (superior!) with if I remember correctly 16 MB of memory. No hard disk or any kind of internal storage; all programs, documents, etc. had to be recorded on cassette tape = cassette recorder included in the package. Np programs available initially - so the user had to learn Basic programming. Fortunately a fairly substantial guide book was included. My wife and I really enjoyed learning programming until the wee small hours - it was fascinating. My wife manage to create, and use, a word processing program - we eventually saved up for a printer, dot matrix of course using those sheets of paper in a long concertina with perforated edges. My "contribution" was a shunting program for a model railway, selecting the order of wagons randomly.

After forays with ZX80 and Sinclair Spectrum at home, and Amstrad at work, there followed a succession of Macintoshes and of course inkjet printers. Then I moved to a PC and was able to use Trainz! Joy!

After all this, I must say that I don't care how computers work, as long as they do, nor am I in the least bit bothered about the inner workings of Trainz - just as long as I continue to enjoy using it - and not necessarily the latest version as I have too much time invested in TS10.

Ray
 
Well I'm honored as well to covet the grand title of Doctor in Trainzology!

I'm no programmer either with my foray into programming only in some college classes I took off and on as a requirement. My interest in program waned very quickly after I discovered the complexities of hardware, and busied my life as a technician fixing boards to the component level and later on systems. As this industry shrank, I moved on to MIS and then later IT where I retired from in 2012. In the end, what as supposed to be a temporary job to save up money for college turned into a 35 year career when I decided it beat starving as a concert pianist and piano teacher. In 2009-2010 I did a quick sidetrack into education and music when there were no jobs, and it was the best time of my life. That ended when our governor decided the unemployment retraining was worth a budget cut in exchange for a tax cut for his buddies.

Anyway what you see here among many of us 'experts' is experience. Yup good old-fashioned being bopped in the head a few too many times and now know when to duck. You might think 13 or more years will drive some of this stuff into our heads. :)

Now some thoughts.

Ideally N3V should create their own content. It was like that in the beginning, however, as the early days of Auran proved it was difficult keeping up with the growth and the amount of content that people wanted, and the quality of their original stuff was being far surpassed by that created by the community. The idea then was to increase the sharing capabilities of the community and in 2003 the Download Station as we know it came about. I wasn't part of this world until December 2003, but I remember mentions of it before so I might have the date mixed up. But anyway it's around this time they decided it was a lot easier to focus on the program rather than the content. The problem too if the company did the content as well, we wouldn't have a lot of content and what we have would be quite expensive because they need to cover the salary of the in-house graphic artist and modelers.

With content being made by the community, you're going to see various levels of quality. Keep in mind that many people share their content after the fact, meaning they create their stuff for themselves then proudly share it afterwards. As time has gone on, the programs needed to create content have gotten better and the in-place internal program standards have brought up the quality bar from the early days. The underlying game engine too, as much as people don't want to believe this, has improved and has some complex error checking in it now. Error checking wasn't always part of the equation here, and this has only lead to the state we're in now. The company, then Auran, was growing so quickly at that time, that that was the farthest thing sadly from their minds. It took nearly a decade to get stuff in order where it is today, and the quality bar is going up with each subsequent version sadly to the chagrin of many users and content creators.

We have to remember here too that we look back at the stuff that was okay back then, but looks terrible now in very much the same vein as we look back at old cars, hairstyles, and clothing from the past. Our computer hardware back that wasn't nearly as powerful as it is today and compromises had to be made. If the hardware we have today was available then, at the consumer level, then it may have been different. During the early days, movies such as Toy Story and other animated flics took arrays of computers, called rendering farms, with each computer crunching away daily for weeks at a few thousand frames each, and the quality of those games is about on par with the quality we had, visually, in the early versions of Trainz.
 
Whilst not a Doctor of Trainzology, I do have a PHD from the University of Old Milwaukee and my old fraternity of TappaKeggaDay :)
 
After my C128 I had an Amiga. Greatest computer ever made. In 1985 its graphics and sound capabilities were 10 years ahead of PCs and Macs. I digress. When you added memory, a hard drive or 68030 accelerator you were on your own. Myself I like all the 3rd party designers. It's mind blowing seeing what some people can ring out of this program.
 
davesnow said:
LOL! Jon, the last time I dabbled in PROGRAMMING ( and this is the God's honest truth) was when I had my Commodore 64!! I created a game or two back then.

No, I wouldn't say I'm a Doctor of Trainzology but I'm flattered you would think so.

Cheers,

Dave Snow
Click to expand...

I used to make games on my Commodore Amiga so if Dave Snow gets the title I want one too.................:hehe:

But if the titles are in short supply I'll give mine to Paul Cass.

Mick
 
gd5150 said:
After my C128 I had an Amiga. Greatest computer ever made. In 1985 its graphics and sound capabilities were 10 years ahead of PCs and Macs. I digress. When you added memory, a hard drive or 68030 accelerator you were on your own. Myself I like all the 3rd party designers. It's mind blowing seeing what some people can ring out of this program.
Click to expand...

The Amiga was brought down by the NTSC monitor I think. Even a $400 Flicker Fixer couldn't make it watchable for computing operations.
I had an Aria sound card with voice commands, worked perfectly!
Mick
 
Mick_Berg said:
The Amiga was brought down by the NTSC monitor I think. Even a $400 Flicker Fixer couldn't make it watchable for computing operations.
I had an Aria sound card with voice commands, worked perfectly!
Mick
Click to expand...

That non-interlaced screen was horrible. I had to do some video editing on one for a computer-based training company I worked for. I would go home with a headache that was so bad that system could have been considered cruel and unusual punishment.
 
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