The idea of the Index possibly being passed on to the NMRA for reconstructing, I'm afraid, doesn't leave me with much of a good feeling. The NMRA is currently divesting itself of its HQ building and has publicly committed to placing the Howell Day Collection, quite possibly along with its library, in the hands of one of the west coast's RR museums (in doing so, it is committing to expending a vast sum of money that it doesn't actually have). To me, this does not bode well for any new and complex in-house projects. With its effort to remove much of the organization's former assets, I consider this "streamlining" more an effort by them to become largely just a figurehead outfit, rather than a truly hands-on and hobbyist-helpful organization. I doubt outsiders can see this so readily, but many of us long associated with NMRA may have quite a different feeling about the matter. I would note also that many of the past NMRA "projects/team efforts" to create, or formalize, aspects, or specific approaches to the hobby, have often languished for years, if not decades, without ever reaching fruition (look what it took to get module standards, or the horn-hook coupler). To my mind, passing the Index on to the NMRA could turn out to be akin to really dropping it into a black hole. NYW&B
I remember those days! And using &&&&& as a delimiter if delimiters could be more than a single character.
The NMRA is currently divesting itself of nothing. The are several members of the board that want to do that, but it has been expressed by the membership that this is not their desire. This would also be contingent on the State of California also giving the museum the money to allow them to take the assets. Right now California is in worse straits than the NMRA. So that won't happen soon. As to horn hook couplers, that was NEVER an NMRA project. There was a dissimilar coupler that was voted on by the membership, which was rejected by them as not being realistic enough and the Horn hook was an invention by several manufacturers, based on an earlier concept, to provide an easily manufactured one piece coupler. There never has been a coupler endorsed by the NMRA. Yeah, some things do seem to take forever to get done, but again, its a volunteer organization, with its active volunteers living several thousands of miles apart. There still are committees that have no chairman, no guidance because of that. Right now even the most active committees can only meet once or twice a year. Again its easy to criticize an organization when you're not a member, don't know how it really works, or won't join it to make it better. I have spent the past 30yrs as an active regional and national volunteer, and even spent time as regional officer. How much have you all volunteered?
Carey has very good points about the NMRA. Let's keep in mind that it's very easy to criticize, and it's very hard to join into organizations like NMRA and make a difference.
Pete; Thank you for your kind comments. That is the point that I'm trying to make. Everyone has very good ideas about what should be done, not just with the database, but also the great ideas posted in other threads as in the DCC thread on the NMRA standards, right or wrong. But when its time to really step forward and do something, I'm willing to bet that out of the ten or so folks that said they'd be more than happy to assist, maybe, MAYBE, one will actually do something! I think my rants are over for now.
Database discussion aside, I fully agree with your statements about volunteering. I've taken on the role of chief clerk/secretary for the Twin Cities Division, starting this fall. I've never done anything like that before, so I'm not sure what I'm in for, but without "people" to do the work, these groups can't exist. If approached about the database stuff, I'd seriously consider it.
I'm afraid that, in these rather distressed economic times, it's harder to volunteer, so I applaud those who do. As I've said before, it's easier to speculate and criticize than it is to actually do something to fix a problem. The last time I took on a "small" conversion project of 2000 records, I was aghast when I saw the data, and spent many a sleepless night "conforming" each row of data. I had only 2000 "rows", with about 20 "columns"; well, that's still 40,000 individual fields to check. The data entry and conversion issues here may be more labor intensive than many folk realize. I wish it were something where I could say, "OK, we got 70,000 records. I need only 70 volunteers to check 1,000 records each." It just doesn't work that way. Checking 1,000 records, even with the most ingenious of programming, isn't realistic for each volunteer. Of course, getting 70 volunteers is probably more unrealistic than expecting them to clean 1000 records each. Most people get terminally bored with 50 records.
Carey, I suggest you take the time to brush up on your history of the hobby and the NMRA. The so-called X2f coupler originated via an NMRA committee effort, one headed up by Paul Mallory, in the mid 1950's, after a much extended period of design and re-design. The cleverness of that committee was demonstrated by the fact that the final result, the X2f coupler, was totally incompatible with any other existing coupler at that time! When it came to a vote it was indeed rejected by the NMRA membership, but nevertheless was adopted by (not created by) multiple manufacturers as a cost advantage. The NMRA subsequently spent a long time attempting to separate itself from any association with that coupler, but for a very long time it was universally referred to as the "NMRA coupler" just the same. Likewise, in an era when there was considerable initial interest in HO modular railroading, the NMRA took some 8-10 years to formalized their standards, so long that most clubs, or groups, actually interested in building HO modular layouts gave up on them and went ahead and adopted their own, or existing standards. As to my association with the NMRA, since you asked, I was a member for more than a quarter century, only recently totally giving up on them. I, too, was very active for a time, successfully resurrecting a totally defunct Division, serving in various elected positions, presenting clinics at Regional conventions, as well as writing numerous modeling articles that graced both the local and Regional publications. So don't think I'm some outsider that doesn't know what he's talking about. NYW&B
I've seen the HO modular issues first hand. My club is HO Modular and they turn their head and spit every time they mention the NMRA standard. I've met a lot of people in the hobby that fill up their swear jar discussing the NMRA. I've seen some bad and some good out of them, but I've taken all the bad blood to heart, that's for sure. It's an organization that has certainly lost a large bit of the railroad community for one reason or another.
Hi there I've also looking in to what we could do about retaining very useful tool, I found a thread on it over at the Model Railroad Hobbyist forums were Joe Fugate says he is trying to form an open source group to rebuild it. He's got provisional agreement from the NMRA to host a new index and is negotiating with Kalmbach to get the original data and files. I'd contacted Kalmbach myself to see if these might be made available, but I've decided to throw my lot in with Joe as I'm sure he has a lot more clout with them than me. As regards the technology behind the existing index this is what it used to say - The TM application is written in "C", and is based on an ISAM/Network database manager I wrote in the late 1980's. The code is highly portable, and versions exist for MS-DOS, Windows NT and several flavors of UNIX. I also run it on my HP Palmtop. The version running on this site is a Win32 console application. Note that it is a Win32 console application not DOS. The Database however is in it's own unique ISAM format, but I have managed to trace the original programmer and he may be prepared to help providing Kalmbach have no objections. Tom
This is all good news Welcome by the way I had a suspicion Joe and MRH would lead the charge on this. I just didn't know if Kalmbach would be interested in talking to him.
Joe and Kalmbach seem to have good relations, though I would have thought they would be natural rivals. I hope Kalmbach do release it, it would seem like a public relations disaster waiting to happen if they were to both refuse to run it themselves and refuse to let anyone else run it. As an IT professional I can see many reasons why they might not want to run it on their severs, some of which might even be valid. I don't know how much traffic it used to get but my thought is that a quick and dirty solution to getting it back online quickly might be to run the original program on a PC in someone's house, either on a dedicated PC or in a VM. at the end of a domestic ADSL line and use dynamic DNS. I've lurked around there forums for a while, but only managed one post in the last two years I'm afraid.
Might I suggest that you do the same. The x2f coupler was was NOT the coupler voted on by the NMRA membership. The reason that it wasn't compatible with any other coupler was because it was a preliminary design. The design voted on was a better design that the x2f, but still was rejected. The membership wanted something that looked more prototypical, one piece or not. The manufacturers decided to bring the x2f coupler out on their own. As to the module standards, yeah they did lanquish for a while. Mainly due to no volunteers for that committee. Everyone used variations on the N-track standards. Your volunteer work in the NMRA almost mirrors my own, except I'm still at it. Have been since 1974. My criticism wasn't directed at you specifically, but to anyone who hasn't been a member, will not join, and therefore has no idea how the organization works.
Wow, no wonder people are twitching at Kambach! When I was working in IBM mainframe ISAM files I was still blowing hair out of my eyes and coding in RPG. If it's like the home-brew DOS-based ISAM files I came up with, you managed your own relative record pointers as the ONLY thing DOS had going for it for native indexing was relative record numbers. You could make it work though, until the dreaded "IO ERROR" message, and thats where index rebuild routines came from. OK, back to the Old Programmers Home, but I left the directions written on an 80-column card somewhere...check my pocket protector and extended memory....and I think I need to flush my buffers before I board the data bus.
Tom this certainly is very good news. I use the database extensively at times, esp doing research for model construction. If Kalmbach approves, that would be great.
Let's not get overly melodramatic in relating anecdotes about NMRA, or reactions from your club. Most volunteer organizations are easy to criticize as glacially slow. In today's nimble Internet world, that probably rules out NMRA except as a sponsor: the real work will be done by an impromptu group. I see nothing wrong with that--let everyone contribute what they can. I think the more sniping that occurs, the less likely this effort will be a success. Instead of complaining about past delays, get involved and move things along.
Carey, re the X2f coupler's origins, in your original post it was your contention that the X2f horn hook couple was "...NEVER an NMRA project", but rather originated with the manufacturers. As I pointed out, it most definitely WAS a failed NMRA project and whether or not the version voted on by the membership was absolutely identical, or not, is moot. The infamous X2f came directly out of the NMRA, no where else. There's even a citation to this effect on the NMRA website. NYW&B
Sorry, I miss spoke. I meant that it wasn't the one voted on, as I did say. I never meant to imply the NMRA didn't have anything to do with it. Mea Culpa. Its just that I, and many of my division friends, get upset at times over the folks who denigrate the NMRA, without either never being a member, or just joined for a short time and was surprised that the NMRA didn't beat a path to their door. Yeah the NMRA is slow at times, and yes it does seem to avoid "upgrades" to some standards, but as long as it does set the standards it gives the manufacturers a minimum acceptable level of conformance to shoot for. Besides, that is all a standard does, it sets a minimal acceptable level for everyone to follow. Many say the NMRA is past its day and that we should let the manufacturers set the standards. I don't believe it is past its day. If the NMRA disappears, then I believe that we will devolve into the situation like what exists in G scale, where the manufacturers do set "the standards". A G-scaler said to me last year, that there are 9 different scales that all run on the same wideth track, but they are all G scale. Imagine the chaos that could ensue in DCC. Instead of the standard that allows us to use NCE, Soundtraxx, Lenz and Digitrax decoders on just about any make of command station, (except for the Motorola units like Maerklin), all the systems could become proprietary systems, like DCS, and you'd be limited to one make of decoder for your layout.
Would a different approach be better? As you know when the index disappeared my first thought, as was several others, was to think of ways of getting it back online. One of the things I did was to ask on slashdot.org , a well known computer geek hang out, about software I could use to create a modern version of the index. One comment which has given me much cause for thought was this one from AmiMoJo. Couldn't you just scan and OCR the magazines and then use that data to compile a searchable database? You could even supply extracts from the articles where the search terms appear, similar to what Google does. By not presenting the full text of the article I think you would be on safe ground copyright wise. It would also be a good way of archiving old paper documents which can degrade over time. I'm not sure what copyright terms are in your country but some of those magazines might be in the public domain anyway now. Even if they are not the copyright owner might have disappeared by now. Now doing things this way would have been impossible only a few years ago and certainly not 20 years ago when the index was written. I think on the whole it's a better approach than the manually tag each article approach of the old index. Firstly it doesn't rely on the whim of the person doing the tagging, secondly it going to end up as a sort of specialized Google and we all know how easy Google is for even new users and how comprehensive it is. Thirdly as a by-product we get a wonderful library of every article about our subject ever written. Now I know there is a slight problem as regards copyrights in actually letting anyone see this library but I would be hopeful that once it exists public pressure would persuade rights holders to let us make available at least that which is not obtainable elsewhere. Even if we could not we could not freely release it at lest there would be a digital version preserved. Now this would require a much bigger effort and cost considerably more than just re-creating the index but I think it would be worth it. Given what people on this thread have been saying about volunteers getting dispirited would there sufficient interest to carry a project like this off? Tom
I was involved with Ray Kurzweil and OCR back in its early days as a reading machine for the blind. What a wonderful invention and wonderful, insightful technology! I haven't followed it for many years now. How is it these days in terms of accuracy? Especially when scanning older documents?
