Re:The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my wor...
by AnthonyMouse on Tuesday September 01, 2015 @11:12PM
(#10157225)
> For one, it's common sense that a train that disappears from the system isn't really gone-- but the Metro system couldn't take that into account. Stuff like that should be pretty trivial today.
It was pretty trivial in the 1970s. Require the sensor for an adjacent segment to be engaged before the sensor for an active segment will disengage.
You can't do any computation with modern computers that you couldn't have done with relays in the 1970s, or the 1870s for that matter. Mechanical relays are slower, less reliable and more expensive than transistors... but they do the same thing.
It was pretty trivial in the 1970s. Require the sensor for an adjacent segment to be engaged before the sensor for an active segment will disengage.
You can't do any computation with modern computers that you couldn't have done with relays in the 1970s, or the 1870s for that matter. Mechanical relays are slower, less reliable and more expensive than transistors... but they do the same thing.