alt Hacker NewsDoes anyone know how these actually worked under the hood? Was it essentially just a mounting solution, and you wire them up how you need on the back, or were they essentially pluggable modules with some kind of control system attached to the board? I can't imagine it's the second option, given the timeframe, but I kinda want to see a system like that now
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They're mechanically modular. They don't automatically get data somehow. After assembling the control board to your liking, you still have to wire each individual component.
The actual logic (mechanical relays, timers, potentiometers and the like - analog modular setups built by electricians) would have sat in an electronics cabinet separately from the dashboard, which itself would have had simple lightbulbs, dials and buttons.
The former, although there is usually some system with change control documentation for the actual rat's nest behind the panel; the panel mounts themselves can be remarkably modular with swappable and stackable contact switches, etc.
Commonly these components were modular just based on some of the ones I've handled decades ago.
Imagine a configurable rotary switch.
You have the knob part available in a selection of styles and colors.
You have the switch body, which can come in different types, single pole, two pole, NC, NO ext. One I saw you could stack them.
Then you had a basemount with terminal connections, screw, solder, etc.
I've handled decade encoders, stackable numbered encoders. The more convenient ones the the computer could read the selected numbers like you do keyboard matrix.
Peek 1960-70s industrial design. Still available.
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/category/configurable-sw...
The German signalling is built around _Fahrstrassen_, literally 'roads to drive on'. Each one has a start and end point, and the station designer comes up with the ones to implement like 'from entry signal X to platform 1'. These 'roads' are usually a strict subset of the physically possible settings of all the switches.
In the old mechanical lever boxes, there were three kinds of levers: 'elements' (switches, derailers, gates), 'roads' and signals. To let a train move along a road, you first had to set all its elements correctly, and the road lever would only unlock when this was done. Pulling the road lever would also lock the associated elements in place. Then, you could 'open' the signal lever associated with the road, which is only unlocked when the road lever is pulled.
The interface in the page is built of modular components for elements and signals, which behind the scenes are connected to 'road' circuits. You select a road by holding the button at the start and pressing the one at the end. This tries to set up all elements along the road correctly, locks them electrically (with relays) if this succeeds, and then switches the signal at the start of the road. Obviously, the safety property is that you cannot set a road (or an individual element) while it is locked by another road, and no two roads can ever conflict with each other.
Of course, there are 'emergency overrides' for when components are malfunctioning, and strict protocols for using them - for example, not this way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Aibling_rail_accident