Tom and JP tried to determine the cause of and solution to a curious problem with the IMP. Under certain circumstances (which seem to be repeatable) the IMP appears to reset and stop generating tokens, which causes the network to stop responding. In general, the IMP should never reset or stop generating tokens without a command from the server, and no such commands of that nature are being sent, which is what's odd about this.

Hugh Robinson returned, after a year in Australia. John Purbrick worked to add a keypad to one of the plug-in cabs that previously was almost buttonless. He has also been working to add more diagnostics to the firmware for the IMP, which has been acting a bit odd of late (though the root problem may lie elsewhere). Tom worked on the web page a bit.

The problem with the IMP was identified and apparently fixed. Basically under certain circumstances the server sends a reset command to reboot everything on the block card network. The command to tell the IMP to start generating tokens (necessary for network communications) came too soon after the reset command for the IMP to respond to it. James fixed the appropriate code in the server and it seems to be working right now.

In preparation for the open house, which someone foolishly scheduled for next weekend, Genya tested a variety of trains and identified numerous problems with derailments and decouplings. John Purbrick helped to fix some of them, the worked on the wireless cabs with Tomas Mloduchoski. Tom cleaned up the room, and discovered to his dismay that the shopvac is missing; some time was spent contemplating suitable punishments for the guilty party. Alvar and Tom worked to split four long blocks of track (about 20' each) into two blocks each. Wires were run, block cards were assembled and installed, and with a bit of help from JP programmed. The blocks in question have been a bottleneck during past open houses so things should run more smoothly on Saturday.

Finally, the club was visited by some engineering students from Duchess Community College in New York, who were in Boston for the weekend.