Lionel’s team of talented engineers have been hard at work on an enhanced platform hardware and code that leverages all of the positive things about each of our current platforms and will allow all of our technology (TMCC, Legacy, LionChief and Bluetooth) to remain viable well into the next decade. By creating a platform that is easier to use, more efficient, more easily manufactured, able to communicate through the full range of O Gauge products offered (Ready-to-Run starter sets through Vision level product) Lionel will advance the industry standard platform in O Gauge and ensure a future for this hobby and Lionel.
The short term part about a new third party is good in my eyes, but it does reiterate that parts obsolescence is a big factor, as Jon Z had suggested in his post in the old thread. It sounded like the obsolescence is still on the not too distant horizon, but not as drastic as the previous announcement of mid-May 2018.
The paragraph above from Howard's letter sounds interesting. Everything in my next paragraphs is jut me thinking out load and wondering what could happen, so take it with a grain of salt!
If that "enhanced platform hardware and code" may end up being able to be a new upgrade path offered to consumers, it could be a positive thing. If a new design is possible that actually can do all of the different features with one set of hardware, but possibly be programmed to be either a TMCC, Legacy, LionChief, Bluetooth (or combination thereof) functionally, it could be useful, but I can't guess what the cost for such a flexible solution might be.
Something like this could mean the boards are all the same physically, but programmed to be either standard TMCC (for upgrades), Legacy with Blue Tooth (for high end Lionel products), or LionChief with Bluetooth (for lower end starter set products). Maybe even the Legacy version might be able to be offered, if the customer was to be willing to pay more for it than a TMCC upgrade enabled board.
For anyone familiar with electronic test equipment, I'm thinking of this like an analogy to a piece of equipment that may from a hardware perspective, have the full capabilities of a fully loaded, all options purchased unit. The manufacturer simply programs the unit to include the options purchased when you buy it, but all the capability is really included in the underlying hardware in all units.
Granted, those types of solutions are generally in hardware that costs tens of thousands of dollars, or even up to a couple hundred thousand dollars, but if that method is possible on a smaller scale, it would be very interesting.
It would be extremely impressive if such a thing could be offered at similar price points to ERR (or slightly above), or possibly even different price points depending on what is enabled. Previous posts in the other thread indicated Lionel had actually begun to sell Legacy boards, which I had been unaware of.
My fear of what we will lose will be the older stuff for AC motors, which is why I tried to order a single AC Commander for an engine I might like to do sometime. Since all the new engines are DC cans, I would imagine AC motors may not easily fit into the equation there (but maybe the engineers at Lionel are thinking up a way - even if it was a separate board to go with my fictional "master" board I describe above. I'd also wonder about any other non-engine boards that might be too much engineering to re-design.
Again, all just my random thought on what could maybe happen, at least in my attempt at positive thinking here.
-Dave
