Train Simulator Controller | Hacker News Reader

Train Simulator Controller

z80.me

105 pointsaustinallegro10 comments

I love this stuff. Seems like a massive untapped market if you get in partnership with a manufacturer. There are enough train buffs around the world, although I guess the tricky bit is that the dashboards are all different.

I found it surprising that despite having amazing international supply chains, it can still be hard to source electro-mechanical parts. I wondered about knocking up an NX signalling panel as a nice to have to my layout but sourcing those latching push/pull buttons is equally difficult although maybe they were only really used on the real thing and the demand has disappeared along with the supply.

It’s not really as complete of controller as it’s mostly just one lever and some standard controller buttons, but the Zuiki Mascon is reasonably decent for Japanese market sims and the game Running Train on Steam.

It’s also very affordable and compact which is a plus.

Train controller database: https://traincontrollerdb.marcriera.cat/index.html

In many ways this project is more difficult than building a professional train simulator (I've worked on one).

1. Professional customers are willing to pay for (and usually have an in) on getting genuine parts. You usually don't have to worry about scouring ebay for a authentic throttle control lever and hoping one turns up. There is some challenge in interfacing the controls to your system, but you probably don't have to start from scratch. Even if you do, you might be able to access drawings. You might get protocols documented and not have to reverse engineer anything. In our case, we didn't have to make those custom panels, we could just get real ones. Sometimes, you do get nothing though, so you have to have those skills.

2. You aren't building a sim necessarily for how accurate it is to the real vehicle, they are ordering it because they have operators they want to train. So if a LCD screen behind a bezel provides the same training value as interfacing a real gauge, you might well go for a screen. This one varies by customer, but generally they care more about having the correct buttons, switches, anything you touch more than something you look at.

Wow, really clean design. I'm surprised that you could get hold of original hardware. Not sure how much of it is commodity industrial equipment Vs bespoke buttons, etc.

I would love a controller like that for my editor, or my LLM. That would make coding so much more fun.

I can't find it sadly, but somebody made an 80s style industrial control panel for a SQL server deployment, with all the clicky radio buttons and 7-segment displays you could wish for.

maybe only "the sign" remains...

  ACHTUNG!

  ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENSPEEPERS!
  DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN!
  ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND
  POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN.  IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN.
  DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS
  POCKETS MUSS.  ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights

You can control your computer using MIDI interface. Sometimes we demo our JavaScript UI components using AKAI LPD8 MKII

Haha really? How do you hook up midi to the UI?

WebMIDI: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_MIDI_AP...

It turns state changes from any MIDI device into JS events that you can handle any way you want.

I use Claude Code to wire it up

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