How do you initialize a home made dcc decoder? Is there an executable program that goes into the decoder chip (16f84)or do you just put the right values into the CVs. I am literate on main frame computers but I am new to DCC and am having a hard time comparing the two. Such as CVs are just address in the decoder to me. Where does the operating program reside? Exactly what do the components do and how.

-- Robert Pujda (rjpuj@worldnet.att.net), March 02, 2003

Answers

The "decoder chip" is not a decoder. It is a single chip microcomputer. The software program that it executes to cause it to act like a DCC decoder is pre-programmed at the decoder factory and retained in one-time-programmable internal memory.

If you simply copy the hardware circuit design to build one of your own it will have a blank memory and do nothing.

-- Don Vollrath (dvollrath@magnetek.com), March 03, 2003.