I like Windigipet, but I know a few others on the forum are big fans of Railroad & Co...

Windipet does not integrate with track planning software, but it does integrate nicely with the IB, Lissy, Faller Car system, the Collection software, Gerd Boll's Current Sensor hardware, watchdog and a ton of other things.. But it does not do any decoder CV stuff and no obvious support for mFx (ie Mfx locos run and you can use two addresses to get 8 functions, but you can't do any of the cool stuff that can be done with the ESU programmer..)

Freeware - there is a DOS one on the links page.. There is a very cheap one from Tayden Software, but the really useful products (like Windigipet and Railroad & Co) cost real money..

You also need a decent computer.. I suggest a 1.6Gb Pentium 4 with 512Mb ram is a minimum.. I can get 7 going at once with this system (or I could before the power surge disaster).. More trains, more turnouts, more contact tracks (you need lots of these too) and more routes need more computing grunt...

I need to also state that there does not seem to be any support for the Central Station yet.. So the big hardware players are Intellibox and the 6021/6051 combinations..

I use Win-Digipet and it is absolutely great. The user interface is easy to learn and to create automatic traffic is easy and very flexible. I use 700MHz Celeron with WinXP without any problems.

Juha

For the CS? -None! [:0]

This can be a yes/no answer.

There are solutions available which allow a booster to be connected directly to a computer, this is the no part to your thought. The computer now has to do all the work and the amount of programs available out there is very limited. On going development or support for these solutions will vary considerably.

If you want to just quickly play or manually play with the layout then in most cases a central station with the ability to connect to a computer for a computer controlled option would be the better way to go. These days a central unit would cost somewhere around $500 to provide the best of both worlds. Software for computer control is widly available and on going development for most programs would also be available for those who wish to have the latest and greatest.

I personally prefer a central station to operate the layout and allow the computer to mearly handle the simple information transfer back and forth to the central station and allow the central station to do the dedicated timing tasks. Should you prefer to either addon new products or sell the equipment down the road the options and abilities are easier (this is my personal view on it).

Maxi

I got my uhlenbrock ib and lissy kit and it rocks!!! Thankyou to the guy who translated the lissy manual, been helpful....
Now Im looking for computer software that might make it easier to program the lissy sensors, anyone know of any out there? I downloaded win-digipet 9 demo but nothing is mentioned about lissy stuff...

Please help?

Yes well... It looks like WDP supports the Helmo lok numbering system and I assumed that it would also support Lissy - it seems that this is not the case... However, I am doing some more research on this one...

There is some link between WDP, Loconet Display and Lissy (see http://www.trenes-aguilo...tros/loconetdisplay.htm) that may be of use..