Legacy System's Postwar Era Technology

I just use the LCS WiFi adapter to connect to a PC.  Legacy was made more than 10 years ago now.  Serial connectors were still regularly on PCs then.  A lot of the TMCC technology was based on the serial connection as well.  Whether they'll change this in the next gen will have to be seen but as I said with the WiFi box, it really doesn't bother me anymore.

Yes, the LCS WiFi option is a good workaround. It's just surprising to see such an odd mix of old and new technology. It's like seeing rail sounds circuit boards, and a mechanical e-unit in the same engine (which did actually occur on a few locos in the early 90's). 

There are still RS232 pinouts on motherboards in desktop computers. And much of the electronic products in Ham radio use RS232 DE9 ports. Not dead yet.

The original CAB1 came out in in the mid 90s.  The serial output was designed to support expansion and was useful to monitor or send TMCC commands using a computer.  The serial data rate was sufficient for TMCC which sends out 48-bit packets.  IC Controls and ZStuff subsequently used the serial output as their device input.  The serial I/O drivers are simpler (less code) than TCP/IP which makes a huge difference (cost, power, memory) when implementing the logic as firmware. 

IIRC, networking with PCs in the early to mid 90s was, shall I say "interesting", until Windows 95 came out and provided a consistent network stack.  I have a box of 28.8 modems from that era.   Serial comms between two devices in that era was simple and reliable and serial ports were standard in PCs until about 10 years ago.

20 years later we have several orders of magnitude increases in network data speeds, but the data rate required for TMCC and Legacy communications remains the same.  Most commands remain 48 bits (3 bytes).  The extended Legacy protocol allows three 48-bit packets to be aggregated into a single command.  When a 3-byte Legacy command get translated into WiFi packets, a 3-byte packet gets framed into a TCP/IP packet of 68 bytes plus all of the TCP/IP handshaking overhead.

Just because your PC doesn't have a serial port in the back doesn't mean the Legacy Base's reliance on serial comms to external devices is not modern enough.  Get a LCS WiFi module if you want network connectivity, or use an inexpensive USB to serial adapter.

The internal combustion engine has been in use for over a 100 years.   Not dead yet, but maybe in your lifetime.

For that matter, so is the electrocardiogram, and I suspect it will still be in use for another 100 or so.

Landsteiner posted:

The internal combustion engine has been in use for over a 100 years.   Not dead yet, but maybe in your lifetime.

For that matter, so is the electrocardiogram, and I suspect it will still be in use for another 100 or so.

I totally agree. I heard a buzzing noise from my Legacy base. I'm convinced four of the pins from that RS-232 serial port go to a hidden E-unit inside the shell.