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Cherry, Cherry, Blue Screen Of Death
Falrick writes "Microsoft, the company that has its fingers in inumerable pies, decided to follow suit by also placing their toes in them with this anouncement yesterday that they will also be moving into the embedded chip market. While the article doesn't say that Microsoft will actually be producing chips, they are apparantly licensing special versions of WindowsCE for use on a variety of chips including those made by Intel, ARM and MIPS. On the upside, though, for those of you who would like to get back those licensing fees, or Microsoft Tax, that you paid on that shiny new system a few years ago, MS may also be partenering with Bally Gaming & Systems to put WindowsNT into their casino slot machines. Now, what's the payoff on three blue-screens in a row again?"
Some things don't adapt well at all.
NT in an embedded context is one such thing.
TransCore's got this nifty little application that manages access control and billing for parking and airport ground transportation management. System was redesigned from the ground up to run on nearly any server platform, nearly any embedded platform.
As long as ACE/TAO supports it and the components have a TCP/IP connection to the other devices it'll largely compile and run. I know- I designed the beast.
There's two piece parts to the embedded portions system, a transaction processing engine and a transaction generation/lane hardware control engine. The transaction engine can reside on any server that has local or network ODBC/CLI access. The lane control portion has to control several digital I/O points and one RFID device that detects TransCore's vehicular transponder tag.
The NT units at one of the current installations at the DFW International Airport are capricious beasts and periodically need restarting (about once every two or so weeks...). Resource leaks. Not with the app as best as we can tell- Purify told us that we had a clean bill of health, but an internal function in NT was leaking like a sieve. The Linux version is on an embedded machine out at the lanes there at DFW. It hasn't needed a reboot yet. Using Embedded NT would have added about $250-500 per lane to the cost of the embedded hardware version of the system. With Linux, I saved $2500 per lane over the older, centralized design. With Embedded NT, it would have been more like $500-1000 per lane cost savings combined with needing to spend much, much more time writing the device drivers for the embedded I/O on the single board computer we used.
Adapting to any situation's good- insisting on using truly unsuitable tools to do a job ends up being a cobbled up work at best and a botch job in most cases.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Earlier this year I was at the local stadium watching my team play.
They had installed a new wrap-around digital scoreboard in the lower bowl. A few minutes into the game, the scoreboard flashed and you could see the corner of the window "Dr. Watson for Windows NT". :-)
At least the O/S stayed up, I guess.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Be a man. Insult me without using an AC.
Roger. What makes you think there is a merger coming? What evidence or even speculation can you give? Do you really think Microsoft will merge with one of the leading chip makers while under the watchful eye of the DOJ? I don't think so.
I guess what I'm trying to say is your statement is bullshit and can't be backed up. Prove me wrong.
I wonder now how many exploits will be tracked through bugtraq and packetstorm for exploits on slot machines .. I can only imagine.. and I still wonder if microsoft will be held responsible for these types of things??
Jimmy hacks into a slot machine when the eyes fall off of him, only to win the jackpot on every machine in the building. The management didn't catch on, because of Microsoft's continuing insistance that "those vulnerabilities are completely theoretical".
Revelation 0:0 - The beginning of the end.
While it should be fairly obvious that the interface on these machines will be probably be locked down enough to make actually "fiddling" with them worthless, I have to wonder about the possibility of them using a less-than-secure random number algorithm. If, for example, the actual program was a quick-and-dirty hack using VB, it seems it might be possible for someone to find a pattern in the results.
I will admit, however, that this is idle speculation and may be totally off in left field. But it's at least more plausible than being able to load up and run various NT cracking utilites (which I suppose was intended as humor).
The sad fact is that if you're on a low budget, you should use a free *nix of some sort (I prefer Linux of course, but BSD is also good - it's a what-you-grew-up-on thing). If you've got a high budget (and being in the field to use those, you must), then there is no reason to spend that cash on an overly expensive OS (face it: I don't want to spend $500+ for JUST the OS on each server - and not get most of the 'net tools I need).
If you've got an app that needs embedding, then what do you do? Go with an OS meant for embedded devices (NOT WinCE - that's meant for giving a nice front and back end to the person that doesn't care how the machine works, but at the expensive of precious resources. You're neither!). Most of the time Linux will suffice (bsd?). It's free and easily portable.
Fact is you just want to make sure that the public sees an always-going machine that does what it should, and the operators can do their job easily. M$ just doesn't support this - It's only real use is in the home as a gaming machine. Linux (bsd, etc.), while admitably, does take some heavy work to get setup just right (unless you want to go with the default which works for most people), but once it is up and running the way you want it, it stays!
The problem with capped Karma is it only goes down...
SIG: HUP
Seriously, is there a better way to lost lots of money at a casino than a slot machine? I guess if you're too brain dead to run a simple progressive scheme at the roulette wheel, or do some simple card counting at blackjack, you might as well while away your money at the slot machines.
And now MS is getting into the act, hmm, they're getting involved with gambling, they're becoming more like the Mafia every day now. They've already got a handle on the racketeering, I guess other vices are next. I can't wait for compatible for Windows heroin and whores in Seattle.
I'll forgot the obvious joke about SA's using NT already gambling with their work.
Having MSWindows on embedded devices would be very useful. GUI's may seem simple to the /. crowd, but for the majority they are really not as intuitive as they are cracked up to be. It can only be good if people have the option to have the same GUI all around, everywhere. It reduces training costs at companies and the time people have to expend to learn what is, in the end, a simple tool.
Here's hoping that MS port their embedded CE to as many processors as possible.
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
I think of little else but you.
I think "Windows," which basically means "GUI," is the antithesis of the requirements of embedded software.
Although I do think it would be great if you wanted to turn all your appliances into something that resembles a PC.
If you never use anything but nails, all your tools will begin to look like hammers.
--
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
Submitted for your approval. A man walking down the Las Vegas strip finds a quarter in the street and plays it in a Win a Free Car slot machine he had just passed. As he pulls the arm on the oversized slot machine the video display begins to roll. The first slot stops on Dodge Viper GTS as does the next slot. The third slot is about to stop on Dodge Viper and BSOD's. The man screams as his heart explodes from the emotional trauma. Somewhere in Washington, Bill Gates gets out of his Dodge Viper GTS and high fives Steve Ballmer.
You have entered The Microsoft Embedded Hardware Market.
"Me Ted"
BOSTON SUCKS!