Greg,
"I was most likely designing devices with CPU's before you were born" -- Very likely to be the case..with all due respect....but age seems to cloud thy thinking now - methinks. It should be the other way around.
"
I've done cutting edge stuff" - Why have you stopped ?
" There is no University class in a new train control system" --- sigh, which University have you visited recently ? I have a list of over 30...look at this list...just look at it..?
http://www.railml.org/web/index.php/supporters.html ( See if you can spot a University here)
http://www.city.ac.uk/engineering-maths/undergraduate/student-projects/model-train-set ( This is in an undergrad course )
http://www.tsd.org/papers/IEEE 1473-L Communications Protocol.pdf (Where do you think the next generation of this is being researched ?)
....
http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/FinalProjects/ ( If you don't see model train applications here...you never will) Maybe Santa will.
"
You have new electric motors that defy the laws of physics and can do work without consuming power" ( Consuming much less power and doing more. If you use the cheap $20 or less junk motors in the model trains that you now use....this may not be of interest).
"You are going further out in left field here.." And why not ? Almost everything you use today came from way out in left field. Not from mainstream status quo, I assure you.
What galaxy is "your world" in? You state: "In our world the modeling precedes the 'prototypes'." Yes, a paradigm shift. See the definition of 'prototype' in any way you choose. Then simply chose the way you want to interpret it. Model first or prototype first ? Here is a good statement that may help one out: China is the only country in the world to have a fully functioning, production-ready, German designed Maglev daily run. What came first, the model or the prototype ? Yes the implementation can be patently absurd to most.
Really, you need to stick to facts and what you can do to make a new control system. - Myself and a team of engineers from a known University are re-defining in a forthcoming IEEE paper, the very meaning of Command & Control. I'm uncertain if many can handle it. Hint: Follow the US Coast Guard model.
Mockup ? Here's something I call a mockup to people
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZOqhPbj7rs
"The $1,000 is waiting..." No thanks, we are are talking about thousands of hours of student/faculty work here but your offer is generous. Look for a release at the end of March/April 2012 when the manuals and documentation are in place. When things are dismissed as BScale, it can wait. It will be a lot cheaper than that. Instead, send the money to MIT/Reas/Fry who support the Processing language. Incidentally, Fedex shouldn't be taking a week to get anywhere (my jab).
"I'm not intentionally giving you a hard time, but this is going from techno-bluster to BS." - No you are certainly not giving me a hard time, Sir...I have 200 minds that do more than that every day. But as for techno-bluster to Bscale ...do you really want me to respond ?
"Make something, come with with a hardware design, analyze the costs, come up with a software architecture." - It's what we do for a living but it may not fit some minds...
" I've designed and implemented products before."- Why have you stopped ? Just curious.
Cheers,
Victor