I became aware of DCC in the late-1990s and given that I had a background of electronics and tinkering, it seems natural that I became infatuated with this new technology.
Now, 20 years on, I’m like so many other modellers – older, wiser and poorer…!
I recently had a discussion with a group of friends about time and technology. We compared the PCs (computers), cars and planes of 20 years ago with their modern equivalent – and then asked ourselves how we were still using the same DCC system we started with 20 years ago (my primary system is a Lenz LZV100).
In practice the computing power of modern microcomputer systems has developed massively and yet many of us are using 20-year old designs.
One of the main reasons for this is both a blessing and a curse – the NMRA DCC standards.
There is no doubt that the NMRA’s Standards (and the massive USA market that goes with them) is a great blessing that has helped to ensure that most manufacturers have found value in working within those standards – or at least matching them where appropriate.
The ‘curse’ in all of this has been the massively painful gestation of a true detection/identification solution which has fundamentally stalled the real development of new DCC system technology for years.
The final arrival of an agreed solution that all manufacturers can adopt has been a release for all of us and now we wait for all the software developers and control system manufacturers to bring their new and impressive operations control solutions into production.
Model Trains and Tracks 