Le 2010-10-26 17:24, Orchid XP v8 a écrit :
>>> Wikipedia asserts that many newer ATMs run Windows - which would be
>>> extremely disturbing if true...
>>
>> You would be amazed at how many cash registers, ATMs, and even vending
>> machines are actually running Windows.
>
> Why on earth would you pay vast sums of money to use software that only
> provides features that you don't actually need?
>
> I'm not denying your claim, only that it makes no rational sense. I've
> seen Windows running on plenty of PCs in various retail stores. M&S had
> the Windows 2000 logo obviously visible on the touchscreens of their
> checkout machines too. And don't even get me started on the video
> adverts I saw on London Euston all proclaiming that "STOP 0x00000001E
> has occurred"...
>

More about Prague airport...

I was waiting for my flight home and trying to understand the Czech news 
lady (it was Sept 12 2006, and she was talking about the 5th anniversary 
of the WTC attacks), when all of a sudden, all of the tv screens in the 
airport, including arrivals/departures displays, switched back to the XP 
desktop with the little bubble in the lower right corner advising that 
some icons had not been used in 60 days.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
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/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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Le 2010-10-26 19:19, Patrick Elliott a écrit :
> On 10/26/2010 2:35 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:53:12 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>
>>> You would be amazed at how many cash registers, ATMs, and even vending
>>> machines are actually running Windows.
>>
>> Yep. And airline information boards (always fun to see one of those
>> bluescreened) and here in Utah, the light rail system ticket kiosks as
>> well.
>>
>> I had an interesting discussion with a guy who works for Red Hat last
>> week about this as well - seems odd to us that the banks are willing to
>> spend so much money on Windows licenses for kiosks when such tasks are so
>> trivial that an OS like Linux which can be set up as a simple appliance
>> fairly easily.
>>
>> (Of course it's not just about the technical challenges but also about
>> support)
>>
>> Jim
> Support? Oh, you mean, "Turn it off, wait 30 seconds, and turn it on
> again. Unless the web service the kiosk is "actually" running from is
> down, this should fix it (well, at least for a few days...)"
>
Not really.  There are technicians in the airports that do that on a 
regular basis.  Those kiosks need boarding passes and baggage tags paper 
from time to time, regardless of the OS they're running.

IT managers are scared of having to face an application or OS issue that 
can only be resolved by having some programmer in Ukraine decide to fix 
it when he's done playing WOW.  For some reason, knowing they pay tens 
of thousands of dollars per year to have a 24/7 toll-free number they 
can call and yell at someone reassures them, even if the fix doesn't 
necessarily come faster.

This is why Red Hat makes money.

-- 
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/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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>> Why on earth would you pay vast sums of money to use software that
>> only provides features that you don't actually need?
>
> Because it provides the features you *do* need.
>
> When I was working with the vending machines, nobody made a device that
> would take in bills and make change that could be driven from Linux, for
> example.

I would have thought compared to building a large, complex application 
to run the machine itself, writing a few dozen lines of assembly to 
function as a device driver would be pretty trivial...

> Plus, if you pass the cost on to the customer, it's not that big an
> expense compared to buying the machine and the software *you* wrote to
> start with. If you're selling a $5000 machine with $9000 of custom
> software on it, are you really going to bitch at $75 of Windows licenses?

In what universe can you license Windows for a piffling $75? (And can I 
join this universe?)

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On Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:19:29 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Support? Oh, you mean, "Turn it off, wait 30 seconds, and turn it on
> again. Unless the web service the kiosk is "actually" running from is
> down, this should fix it (well, at least for a few days...)"

It's always a little more involved than that when it comes to a kiosk.  
Sure, fixing the kiosk is easy, fixing the kiosk in the context of a 
larger infrastructure is more involved.

I think it's fair/safe to say that ATMs are not stand-alone devices, but 
rather that they're connected into a network and thus "support" involves 
more than just "turn it off, turn it on" if the problem is device support 
or network support.

Jim

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On Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:33:21 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Yep.  And airline information boards (always fun to see one of those
>> bluescreened) and here in Utah, the light rail system ticket kiosks as
>> well.
> 
> Well, everyone has their problems. 

Sure, that happens with complex systems.

> I've not been on an airplane flight
> in the last 5 years or so that the Linux-based seat-back system didn't
> have to be rebooted in flight, for example.

I've not had that experience myself.  I'd be really surprised if that was 
a regular occurrence, given that my Linux boxes all are used much more 
heavily and generally only need to be rebooted after a kernel patch is 
applied.  I think it's been about 5-7 years since my last actual kernel 
panic.

Jim

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On Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:12:38 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> In what universe can you license Windows for a piffling $75? (And can I
> join this universe?)

This universe.  When you're buying licenses for a single-purpose app, 
Microsoft has a licensing scheme for that, as I recall.  Plus volume 
discounts - you don't really think everyone pays full retail for every 
Windows machine they deploy, do you?

Jim

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Invisible wrote:
> writing a few dozen lines of assembly to
> function as a device driver would be pretty trivial...

And you would be right, were we living in a universe where people building 
hardware spent *their* money so you could spend less of *your* money.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> I've not had that experience myself.  I'd be really surprised if that was 
> a regular occurrence,

Well, it is for me.

I'll grant you it's entirely possible it's a hardware, power, or server 
problem. But to the end user, that doesn't really matter that much.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Stephen wrote:
> On 27/10/2010 1:33 AM, Darren New wrote:
>> Sabrina Kilian wrote:
>>> On 10/26/2010 3:45 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>>> Hmm, I may have missed a step: How about a telephone? It's not a
>>>> computer, but it sort of talks to one. How many people can't work a
>>>> telephone?
>>>
>>> Talk to someone who was around when phones switched from a switchboard
>>> to rotary dial, or from dial to push button. May be hard to find
>>> someone, but I bet they will give you a list of complaints similar to
>>> what you hear about computers.
>>
>> I met someone who didn't know how to turn on a cell phone just a couple
>> years ago.
>>
> 
> When did you meet my wife?
> 

Well, to be fair, the guy had been living on a tropical island for 15 years, 
so it wasn't really surprising.  (Actually, it was surprising, since he had 
said he'd lived with his wife in Australia for a while. It took me some time 
to realize it must have been before the invention of cell phones.)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On Wed, 27 Oct 2010 09:14:34 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I've not had that experience myself.  I'd be really surprised if that
>> was a regular occurrence,
> 
> Well, it is for me.

I meant statistically over a large sample of users.

> I'll grant you it's entirely possible it's a hardware, power, or server
> problem. But to the end user, that doesn't really matter that much.

True.

Jim

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