It's a shame that more technically-minded people aren't into model trains anymore. They're a great way to try to figure out logic problems using real world items.
It's my recollection that the very very very first computer hackers were members of the MIT model railroading club, because they understood electric circuits.
Yeah, it's such a fundamental piece of computing history. For instance the the MIT railway club is the origin of the computing terms "hack", "foo", "mung", "cruft", and using "orfice" instead of 'office'.
Observability, for one. In the article, the author talks about the Y-junction that has a flag that directs the train, and the train flips it in some cases, and not in others. Being able to see exactly what happens the moment it happens is just immediately comprehendible... there's no "hidden state"; so if it does something unexpected, you can see the whole situation.
Traditionally, they require so much space. My computer can be palm-sized, or lap sized ... even the ones best left under the desk don’t require large percentages of household rooms or a workshop.
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[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 46.5 ms ] threadIt's my recollection that the very very very first computer hackers were members of the MIT model railroading club, because they understood electric circuits.
What are the advantages over using a computer?
As mentioned in the wikipedia article, the Steven Levy "Hackers" book has a great chapter on those early days.
See also the Jargon File entry:
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/T/TMRC.html
https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/rop/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Nim
It uses similar flippers to operate a marble-driven computer to play Nim.