Funny TMS/DTS messages

Can you explain that to this old codger please T/O?

Bob, the TMS/DTS is the computer system on the newer stocks which displays fault messages rather than just LEDs or blasts of air! ;D
It was a shock to the system coming from the Jubilee line where the TMS displayed all messages and possible solutions to training on the C stocks which has sod all except the odd squirt of air! ;D

My own personal messages I had on the 96s were mainly top do with the ATO failing! Bearing in mind that the ATO isn't active on the Jubilee yet...
Also had one at Dollis Hill one day which said "shunting cabinet open car 3" so I screwed the train down and went to investigate. It was open all right... It was one of the perch seats near the door and had actually came away from the wall!

Oh I see. The usual "All services are running normally" then.

1973 stock, as built with an original Train Equipment Panel, travelling eastbound.

The TEP lamps showing that the service brake was working correctly was giving a different indication to the seat of my pants so I called for a fitter. The Leicester Sq man met me, I told him what was happening and asked him if I would get a "brake test" when changing ends. (On that set up the driver had to make a brake test on the panel every time the cab was opened up.)

When we stopped at Holborn he reached across and reset the Contol Key and attempted to make a brake test. He was unsuccessful and so, according to the standing instructions we had to run empty to depot, resulting in someone having to take responsibility for the failure.

As the fitter walked off down the platform I asked who was going to tell the "old man" (the line controller). I was having a hell of a struggle to keep a straight face, although I did feel sorry for him because this particular chap was one of the more competent fitters.

"Fault code 13: brown stuff happened" ;D.

O.K not quite LU stock but:

'Unzureichende Luft, pantograph zu erheben'
(What happens when you confuse the computer on a 360 Desiro - something about low air pressure, but in the original German).

'MOSL Toliet Out of Use Warning' repeatedly, every 5 minutes, complete with serious fault alarm. (Class 375)

misc-railway-photos.fotopic.net/p10161696.html - Got to be the worst fault ever! (360, again!)
;D

Hey, it's Windoze for Workgroups ;D. About the best version of Windoze there ever was. (not hard)

I wouldnt trust windows 3.11 to run my driver/train interface, thats a very old operating system.

Igelkotten is right, but I personally feel that a Linux variant would be better instead of Win 3.11 - using embedded Linux with "hard" realtime capabilities would be an excellent choice for a TMS.

Perhaps I should have used one of these: www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/13/the_return_of_the_irony_tag/

I'm perhaps a little suprised that IBM OS/2 wasn't used on systems of that age, since it was (and to a lesser extent still is) the dominant OS for embedded systems. Virtually every cash machine more than about 5 years old runs it.

Then cash machine manufactures swiched to embedded XP, and suprise suprise, cash machines started getting viruses (none which caused money to start gushing out unfortunately )

The main difference between a cash machine and a train in this context is that a cash machine is connected to a network (but even then a sensible bank would use a private or virtual private one), while a train should never be. With no network connection, it's pretty much safe from crackers, viruses and anything else (you tend to spot suspicious people sitting at the only means of accessing a computer )

That leaves hardware and software errors as the only way in which something could go wrong. I'd imagine that a TMS comes above a cash machine but below a nuclear power station control system on the scale of how critical a failure is. The consequences of the worst possible failure determine how much effort you put into proving your system "correct". There are ways of proving that a program will always do exactly as expected (and never crash), but they are insanely complicated for anything which isn't trivially small. A nuclear power station in Canada had to do this for it's operating software to satisfy the government it was safe (would have been far cheaper to have used a traditional hardware system.) Given how much effort is needed to do this, companies tend to prefer to avoid doing it again for as long as possible, hence many critical systems running on what is usually considered ancient hardware or software.

And, of course, the 1938 TS (and the O/P/R SSL equivalents) managed perfectly well without a TMS of any kind.....