Re: Department store self-checkouts run on XP (and they crash)

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 12:52:33 UTC, mojaveg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Everett M.
Greene) wrote:

"David" <FlyLikeAnEagle@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
David Brown <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The Real Andy wrote:
Clifford Heath <no@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Clint Sharp wrote:
I have also seen ATMs crashed out to a windows NT desktop.
*major* manufacturer of ATMs told me that they were switching to
using XP commercial edition - they figured it was more likely to
be securely "shaken out" than XP embedded. Yup, standard PC, with
keyboard inside the box.

I was a bit alarmed, even though (or maybe because!) some of my
code could wind up running inside them...

I have seen ATM's still running OS2...

OS2 was very popular with ATM's. Maybe it was something to do with OS2
being far more reliable than Windows (either of that time, or since
then), vastly easier to work with and program, far better networking,
and made and supported by IBM.

OS/2 was/is reliable and very predictable. The developer pretty much
knew how the application would work in the field. It didn't suffer
the attacks that Windows did, but that seems to be more an issue of
popularity. OS/2 works pretty much like linux. You install as much
as you need and newer version of the OS didn't require a whole new
development ideology.

I've worked with many platforms and OS/2 was pretty easy to develop
on. It is still my choice for a reliable home system. I mostly
used OS/2 for embedded medical platforms and a bit of
telecommunications projects.

Maybe the reliability was due to not being bloated?
There's something about the number of errors being
exponentially related to the amount of code...

Did OS/2 need 2**n, n > 20, bytes of memory just to
boot and Tbytes of disk space (to store parts of the
OS that are never used?)?

Of course not. The base OS (text mode, command shell,
multi-threading and multi-processing kernel) fit on
3 floppy disks. You could easily make it to 4 or 5
disks today with all the network and USB drivers.
A Point Of Sale, Medical Device, ATM, Kiosk, Web
Server really doesn't take much to run... even in
the linux, Mac, and Windows worlds.

Take any OS that ran on a 100Mhz processor and
give it the resources it needs and it will run.
Take that same OS and give it a modern dual core
CPU, more memory and drive space than we ever
could have used on previous problems and the
system flies like the wind. I'll match my 500Mhz
XEON home OS/2 system against my 3Ghz Windows
system at work. Guess which one boots faster,
needs fewer updates to stay stable, gets more
work done, and actually does what I want when
I ask it to do something?

Windows just loads the bloat until your entire
system is unusable. It is a difference in user
philosophy. OS/2, like linux, is so easy to
work with as the tools and OS are very stable
over time. If a change to the UI was made, it
was done by the user. Windows encourages the
user to load and run everything they can
possibly find without regard to the rammifications.
OS/2 and linux are more development oriented and
encourage the developer and user to load whatever
they need.

Development in OS/2, linux, and especially the
embedded world, we tend to have a well defined
knowledge of our tools and what they do. We are
allowed to choose our interfaces and tools and
even allowed to have multiple competing tools
on our systems. Windows seems to sell the idea
that every new release solves all your user and
developer problems, while remaining mostly
compatible with the previous legacy. OS/2 and
linux defined an extensible interface for many
concepts and then just created solutions.

Windows does have its place in todays society.
Where else can you be paid twice as much for
half the productivity (for a finished product),
build products that are almost expected to
break when the user gets them, and everyone
seems to be happy with this arrangement.

Am I wrong in this assessment? I've been
doing embedded, application, network,
and mainframe development for 25 years and
the quality of the developers has been
going down. Keeping up with the latest
fad tools has stunted the typical developers
mind.

David
.

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