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Windows XP Embedded
Embedded Geek writes: "Embedded Systems Programming has a piece
about Microsoft organizing its employees to advocate their embedded products in online newsgroups (part of "a new culture at Microsoft" making "an effort to shed the company's reputation as an incommunicative giant.") This is coordinated with Microsoft's launch of Windows XP Embedded at their Embedded Developers' Conference (the countdown clock on their homepage says Wednesday but the launch party is Thursday)." News.com notes that this will be used in slot machines and ATMs. Insert obligatory free-money joke.
In a S/390?
This space left intentionally blank.
Where smallness, understandability, low power consumption, and bullet-proof reliability are the key factors. I don't know who would put XP in a critical device. I don't know who would put Linux in one either, for that sake. "Embedded" in the Microsoft sense must mean "PDAs and museum kiosks" and such, and not the traditional embedded market.
that already is running lots of ATM's out there. Do you ever see a BSOD on a cashpoint - I haven't?
Given the increase in complexity and code size its going to be interesting to see how it goes into devices.
Wow. It turns out you only need 512 MB RAM, 1 gig of storage and a 900MHz CPU on your embedded device to run this.
Wait a minute...
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
The same reason that people use Windows CE: because it's Microsoft, it's supported (in theory), and someone in their organization told them to). And as freaky as it may seem, some people might actually ENJOY using Windows CE. (I know I'm not one of them, but I'm sure it happens. :) )
Embedded means small and fast, both of which cannot be done with Windows CE,Embedded NT, Embedded XP.
This is why 60% of all embedded systems are DOS and then Linux (The linux side is growing fast.... and I mean really fast) and then specalized.
If Microsoft can demonstrate a single floppy version of XP that needs only 4 meg of ram or less to run and leave room for my app then I'll take them serious.
Until then Microsoft products are not looked at as a serious alternative or solution, they are too expensive to impliment in the hardware requirements.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That perception, Microsoft says, is precisely why everyone on the development team of its Talisker embedded operating system now logs hours every week, chatting about the OS in news groups, checking out "bug reports" on a dedicated Web site and meeting with users face-to-face at "plugfests," where they discuss Talisker programming experiences.
Congrats to Microsoft for inventing web based bug tracking. Truly this is a great day for software.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
"this will be used in slot machines and ATMs"
So a Microsoft product is going to be responsible for a machine that takes a whole bunch of money. Who else is a little nervous about all of this?
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
Wanted: Internet browser. Microsoft is seeking qualified and motivated individuals to browse the net and read Usenet news. Must possess abilities with WWW and NNTP technologies as well as verbal and written communication skills.
Hell, I know some people who would probably jump at the opportunity to browse the net and get paid for it. (Well, at least have it as part of their job description. :) )
While I was at MSFT over the summer, a friend at work asked me why Open Source projects had such a community around them no matter how small they were while it seemed harder for MSFT products to build a community around them (as opposed to users which they had plenty of). He mistakenly assumed that the availability of source code was what built the community which from my minor participation in a number of Open Source projects was incorrect.
The main reason users tend to form a community around Open Source projects is that there is direct communication between the users of the product and the developers of the product without the layer of bullshit introduced by marketing and management. If I post to the dbXML, Scoop or JDEE mailing list, I know I'll get at least one response from an actual developer of the product who will make a solid attempt to solve my problem as opposed to paying umpteen dollars to be put on hold by some pimply faced teenager who probably couldn't code his way out of a paper bag.
While at MSFT I planned to evangelize such a user-centric view of interaction but never got around to doing it on as large a scale as I liked. I did however try my best to make sure that as many questions to the newsgroup of our product were answered by someone at MSFT, if not me then someone whom I felt could answer the question. It looks that finally some like minded people are springing up in other parts of MSFT.
It's just that we don't identify ourselves by our names. Most of us have always been like me: when we comment, we acknowledge our association with MS, but we don't give out any identifying information. I pass on the commentary that I pick up here to my product group. Frankly, I think that the Pocket PC is stronger for it.
There are two classes of reasons that we don't use our real names. First, we as individuals don't want to get spammed any more than we already do. Individuals from MS have been targeted and stalked in the past; none of us wants to be the victim of some kook. Second, the company has a right to manage its own messages. Sometimes, obviously, that's a bad thing; our quiet lets the company get away with lying. Usually, though, there are a number of of people who have the right to know before the public does. (Our partners, for instance, may need to adjust their strategies in response to changes that we make along the way in our own. There's nothing so humiliating as not knowing some key point about a change, and having some reporter tell you that he just read all about it in a newsgroup.) We need to protect that orderly flow of information.
Now I know this probably won't happen..but the mention of ATM got my attention.
Wouldn't the use of and embeded version of XP, which will be used for authentication and disbursement of monies, be an incentive for MS to get people and banks to use it's Passport service for authentication/verification etc?
Think about it. They want to get spending data etc, so this would be the perfect opportunity. Now I'm not bashing MS for making an embeded version of XP.
We all know CE wasn't the best...but still are making money out of it and they can most likely capitalize on XP's new features.
Personally I'd stick w/ whatever was already out there for the banking systems...I trust them more than I do MS.
...as historically, slot machines have often been found to be controlled by criminal organizations. After they were affirmed guilty by the appeals court, MS realized that slot machine control was a natural extension of their business plan.
At least five times a week, I see some sort of windows based kiosk type device screwing up.
Recently:
The information terminals at MCI Center (they have never worked properly, to my knowledge- they are always off, talkatively crashed, or frozen.)
Newer Allfirst ATMs (which all use Windows 2000.)
The terminals at the Baltimore Convention Center (the OS keeps forgetting it has a touchscreen, oops.)
If I know what's running on something, that generally means I've seen it crash! The only Linux-based device I saw having problems was a group of web terminals at a New Jersey Turnpike rest area. But they were in a pretty deplorable state from all points, and those were just glorified PCs anyway (one was reporting a keyboard failure at the BIOS, no surprise since it seemed that someone had heavily worked it over with an ice pick)
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
This is what users have been screaming for on their desktops. Food for thought.
So, like, how does this XP embedded fit into an overall strategy that has seen WinCE and even NT embedded?
This seems to be one of those corporate gaffes.
Remember 1994 and Java?
"What a great programming language - I know! - let's tie it in as Web client!"
Along the same lines 2001:
"I know! This .NET is such a great thing we'll shove into those hot new "embedded devices" everyone is talking about!"
<forehead wrinkles>
"Provided by the management for your protection."
No, man, working for Microsoft ROCKS! I LOVE this company! I LOVE THIS COMPANY! Who told you to sit down?! Did I mention how awesome Microsoft embedded systems are? They ROCK!
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/13046.html : August 23,2001: "Utah attorney general Mark Shurtleff says that at least two of the more than 400 letters his office has received in support of Bill Gates' Microsoft were from people who had died.
/. report of this story, but searching /. on "Microsoft" and "phony" brought up too damn many references.]
Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT), in its quest to sway states' attorneys general into settling antitrust charges still filed against it, has apparently orchestrated what was originally thought to be a grassroots letter-writing campaign in support of the company, the Los Angeles Times has reported."
Methinks they doth communicate too much.
[I'd rather have linked to the
-Styopa
[RANT]
the last thing we need is a slowr cash machine with pretty colors.
my bank just replaced all their old, green screen, keypad operated cash machines with new, color touch screen cash machines.
guess what. it takes twice as long to get cash from the new machine.
guess what. visually impaired people can't use the new machines, because there is no brail facility.
sure they are pretty.
I don't want pretty in a cash machine, I WANT CASH!
I don't want slow in a cash machine, I WANT FAST!
now, on top of slow color touchscreens, they are going to add winXP???
it will take 3 days and an air conditioned 8Ghz pentium4 to get my $20, when 30 seconds and a z80 used to be sufficient.
[/RANT]
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How long until Sircam starts transfering money from one persons ATM machine to another?
I send you this financial transaction in order to have your advice.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
NO. I sincerely doubt you can imagine a Beowulf cluster of these. And if you can, you're a retard.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Maybe I am still living in my cave (urr, office) but how many devices did actually have CE in it. Outside of the normal PDA. I have seen and heard about Linux (and BSD) being in things like, printers, "plug-and-play" servers (like those toys from Colbalt), etc.
:)
There is a machine at the family business called a Holtzma. Its a German made saw. Its made to cut entire books of plywood (MCP, pine, or whatever). They have 3 of them, one with simple switches which is *VERY* old. The second has a digital display but looks like a custom OS. The newest one has a Windows machine build in. (I can't wait for the day when I walk by, see the blue seen of death, and get to say those famous words
Anyway, the point behind the saw is that this would be the perfect place for Linux. The PC running it currently has to be a fast machine, becuase of the Windows requirements. Linux however, could use much lower requirements. Plus, take a window manager like blackbox, or other small window manager, to make it simple, small, nice user interface. Since people aren't using things like office suites, you could rip a lot of crap out of it.
Security on such a machine is also a big concern. Wouldn't it be great if your employee didn't feel like working that day, fired up regedit and made a few small changes ? You could imagine all of the other things that could be done. Since its Windows, theres always a false sense of security.
I assume in a few years companys like them would start getting smarter about it. People don't want propritary systems, they want something simple and small. Windows, has too many toys built into it that can't be removed. Plus, when you start looking at the outrages licensing ammounts for Windows. Linux, starts looking VERY nice.
To get Linux being used in a serious way, alls it would take is for a large PDA company like Palm to start offearing it on a few Palm Pilots. (Maybe create a few models with it, just to test the waters). People would start fogetting about Palm OS pretty quick. Other companys would surley follow.
</soapbox>
until (succeed) try { again(); }
---
new advisory posted XX-XX-XXXX (date censored due to DMCA violations).
description: new bug in IE version 12, default on all windows embedded applications (including ATM, slot machines, car stereo systems).
quick description: by using some malformed ATM-cards, an attacker can inject a code that will make IE cross-jump between bank accounts, and therefore access the internals of the account. The string has been sent to microsoft for further analyzation, and hopefully they will give an Obscure Patch within the next eight months.
personal considerations: perhaps in a world of full-disclosure, microsoft would give a patch in few days and save zillions of ATM users, but surely this system could be used by terrorists to subvert the US banking system. so censoring advisories is a good idea.
---
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
I get spam from them all the time! How can you say uncommunicative?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
20$ rebate on all windows xp purchases! Just find an XP enabled ATM machine, call microsoft on your cell phone, and type in your registration key into the ATM, and you get 20$ free! (Microsoft will not steal personal information from you, such as your bank account number or which ATM machines at which banks you go to. However Microsoft is not responsible if your money is stolen due to security holes in the ATM's embedded operating system.)
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
- The Cluetrain Manifesto
, advocates as being the next evolution of business. (I haven't actually read the book yet, but I listened to him speak in Boulder once, and his argument was extremely convincing.) This is my first time posting in slashdot, so forgive any stylistic errors.Free money, or FEE money?
A Fee of $4.00 will be charged to this transaction for customer support, legal fees and continued lobbying to prevent Microsoft from being punished for monopolistic practices.
PRESS THIS BUTTON TO ACCEPT ---->
OR
PRESS THIS BUTTON TO ACCEPT ---->
Sorry, CANCEL has been disabled, please call 1-900-UGO-MSFT for customer support, first 30 minutes $75, mininum charge 30 minutes.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The embedded devices market is not all about small and fast. And even where the issue is small and fast, the XP kernel may well prove to have more to offer than many UNIX designs.
There is a wide range of embedded devices, from washing machines to cars, to industrial process machinery. Until recently only a small fraction of those systems had anything as sophisticated as an operating system.
If on the other hand you want to build a next generation audio system you are likely to find that you need an O/S, you need some sort of file system to store your MP3s, you have an ethernet and possibly a WiFi interface to support, you may even support PCMCIA or compactflash. XP has major advantages in that space since you are guaranteed to have a driver available.
The bloatware charge is and always has been bogus. People don't seem to understand that the value of a 3 year old PC is $150 and so there is no particular reason why Microsoft should limit a $100/$200 O/S so that it can run under the constraints of that machine. 512Mb SIMMs are on sale these days for the price of 16Mb SIMMs a couple of years back, nobody actually makes 20Gb 3.5" disks any more, they are too small to bother with.
RAM and disk space are not constrained resources on the PC, so don't expect companies in that space to constrain them in their products. The O/S kernel is kept small because the performance of the machine depends on large parts of it being in primary or secondary cache most of the time.
The features of XP that will be much more relevant to the embedded systems space are its multi-tasking and scheduling control. I don't expect any traditional UNIX kernel to do well there, the UNIX architecture was never designed for and is simply not up to RT tasks. Thats why the RT Linux varieties have major mods to the internals to support features such as guaranteed scheduling etc.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
In fact, embedded XP is the best thing since sliced bread and the Stinger platform will rarely crash your phone. The XBox kicks ass and Steve "Fester" Balmer is the nicest guy you can imagine.
In essence, it's really not true that Microsoft employees subvert discussion groups. I can prove it if you send mail to captainzapp@microsoft.com.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Embedded could be thought of as 'a computer inside something that's not a computer'.
The computer that handles the engine in modern cars, for instance.
Embedded does not mean 'small and fast'.
Where on earth did you get the '60% of all embedded systems are DOS and the Linux??
Most embedded systems are QNX, VXWorks, and other, traditional real-time operating systems, or hand-written from scratch.
RTLinux is a relative newcomer.
Or do you think 'embedded' means 'small PC' or 'handheld pc'? It doesn't.
Because embedded XP probably has nothing to do with the user-interface features of Windows XP.
Embedded operating systems provide a framework for custom applications to run.
And before you 'trust' them more than you do MS, do you even know who they are? Bold statement.
Embedded systems in ATM's are rigorously programmed applications. THe fact that they move to a different OS is no big deal.
You'll note that it is touted for use in "ATMs and slot machines". That is because it cannot be used for hard realtime, low latency applications like flight controls, robotics, or medical devices. It is also sure to be bloated and inefficient compared with something that is designed from the ground up to be an embedded OS.
I'd highly recommend QNX instead, it is POSIX and QNX sits on the realtime Linux committee. Hard Hat Linux and cousins are looking better and better as well. These solutions do support hard realtime scheduling, thus providing across the board solutions for all your embedded needs. QNX, in particular, is also very well engineered. It provides a highly modular architecture, allowing you to deploy only the functionality you need, minimizing system cost.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Welcome to WinXP for ATM
Please wait.
Enter your card.
New hardware found! Installing card-reader, please wait.
Please remove card from ATM.
Rebooting...
Welcome to WinXP for ATM
Please wait.
GPF, press "1, Clear + Enter" to reboot.
Rebooting...
Welcome to WinXP for ATM
Please wait.
Scandisk found errors on card-reader.
Enter your card.
Errors on your card have been found. Would you like to create a recovery-card?
"No."
It looks like you have never used this ATM before, would you like to transfer your profile?
"How do you know that?? No!"
You have selected withdraw cash.
Access Denied. Only a user with administrative rights may perform this action.
"F***.. Gimme back my card!"
Unable to remove card, there has been a sharing violation. This card is in use by another user.
"WTF????"
My life is one big siesta in which I'm dreaming I wished my life was one big siesta.
there is one ATM network for all banks, managed by an independent group. They are all in color, and some talk and everything. They all used to run OS/2, and there was never a problem, but now they've switched to NT.
Boy, you wouldn't believe the things I've seen popping up on the screen. Everything from "driver failed to load" from "multimedia is on, press ok to continue"! hehehehehe! (how do you press ok on an ATM?)
Oh, and, of course, blue-screens galore!
Next thing you know, the money comes out before you even put in the card...
shana
What embedded systems do you work on ? Most embedded systems (controllers, switches etc etc) run a very very small RTOS, DOS is not an RTOS (Real Time Operating System).
DOS is not an RTOS, Linux is not an RTOS. These systems are not really talking about embedded stuff at all, they are talking about small PC architectures, which have their place. But embedded is about small footprint and 100% reliability. I wouldn't like to know that the medical controller my life relied upon was using DOS.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The display you see for example on ATMs I suspect is just as easy to draw regardless of the OS you use. You're writing embedded systems, which means you are likely to write your own drivers anyways. If you are going to run XP, you certainly have the space/power to run a library like SDL which can do everything XP can do graphically AND remain much less dependent on your platform.
I am not trying to bash windows (okay, I am kinda), but just point out that an OS used primarily as a windowing system, may not be the best pick for a non-windowing system. Its like having windows on PDAs. The screens are barely big enough to show just one window, why would someone want overlapping windows?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
heh.. and does MSN Messenger insessantly load on all the machines. That'd b great, i can check my hotmail while waiting 5 min for my transaction to complete.
:->
Better yet, maybe they leave the remote adminstration enabled by default
"News.com notes that this will be used in slot machines and ATMs. Insert obligatory free-money joke."
see subject line.
Free as in "the Truth shall set you..."
But speaking as someone who has used Microsoft development products for over a decade now, the trouble has always been that the information flow was one-way. They provide you with reams of information, but when you report a problem (and in one case, I was even able to give them a source line and fix for a bug in the ATL), it usually goes into a black hole. I still remember how shocked I was the first time this happened to me. I was used to the way Borland actually let you talk to an engineer and gave you an answer in a timely fashion, even if it was "well, we'll fix it in the next release".
And while I am talking about failings of Microsoft's developer support, I'll mention the other big one: They have a tendency to focus too much on the technology du jour and not enough on older stuff. You find lots of stupidities like sample code that no longer works (just ran into this the other day with the "SAMPLE.DSM" macros that come with Visual Studio). The people at Microsoft need to understand that developers can't just instantly jump to whatever new technology is out there even if it is superior. When you've got a million lines of code that use DDE, the answer "Use COM" is not sufficient.
The cake is a pie
So is this like the embedded Windows NT from about four years ago, which required 48MB(!) of ROM or disk space, and an x86 processor? I don't know how anyone could think of embedded devices with such a monster running on them.
Bush Lies Watch
"It can be a bit of an ego blow sometimes," Morris recalled. "But it comes down to this: We're trying to sell our product to these people, and sometimes they give us very valuable feedback."
Indeed, Morris said that Microsoft incorporated that customer's feedback in its second beta edition of Talisker, which will ultimately be called Windows CE.Net when it debuts as a full-fledged product later this year.
"
That's good. Communication is always good, whether the product is open or not.
Now do it with all of your products (including Windows XP) and I will might consider go back to Windows full-time. And stop hiding features in the registry! You listening Microsoft!?!
Now we know how little John Connor did it!
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
Microsoft seems re-defining the term "embeded". In my experience, embeded means a device who's OS is completly invisible to the end users.
To me a sales/Internet kiosk is not embedded, a PDA is not embedded. Embedded systems are not necessarily small, but the user is not required to know abut the system at all. For instance, a telephone switches, PVR, heart-rate monitor, automotive control.
These devices run with minimal system resoures for years on end without errors, reboots or upgrades. Frequently, the OS is coded in ROM. T
I used to use an OS called OS/9 from Microware on my 6809 based Tandy Color Computer. This OS ran in 64K (not Meg) or RAM and a single 360KB floppy drive. It's a real time, protected memory, secure operating system. OS/9 runs on quite a few low-wattage CPUs with significant processing power. While not free, it is a mature, reliable OS. And I mean OS, not kernel.
Probably everone in the United States interacts with and OS/9 embedded system on a regular basis, but they'll never know it.
MS on the other hand is providing an OS that will still run on a high power consumption system with tremendous resources that is built in to, or controls some other device or structure. In most of the applications this "embeded XP" would target, the OS would be the front end that interacts with the end user.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
XP should be imbedded in those machines you usually find in train stations that will weigh you and tell your fortune.
That way, Microsoft can honestly say XP "scales".
{mmph, snort, BWAAAHAHAHAHA}
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
My experience with people who work in a manufacturing business (like building ATMs) is that management is a bit more sensitive to costs than, say, your typical pointy-haired IT manager. Waltzing into a meeting and stating that you think it's a good idea to increase costs by $300 and all you're going to get is a modest (and debatable) improvement in the user interface might require a lot of justification. ``Because it's from Microsoft'' might not be enough to convince the boss when he askes why you want to replace perfectly good, working code in the product line. Like someone mentioned in another post: A Z80 could do the things required in an ATM. And how much do those cost?
Personally, it sickens me to see people's thinking limited to single turning of the gears and coming up with a solution without considering alternatives. Must be something they're putting in the cafeteria food in schools nowadays that is dulling their thought processes.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
In Sweden, some ATMs are already running NT.
:)
And yes, they did *actually* get those "Low on Virtual Memory" errors (try to hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE to reboot on an ATM) and even a few bluescreens back then. I kid you not.
On the other hand after those child diseases, they are actully seeming to behave, and I know of noone that has actually lost (or gotten) money due to this.
The banks just needed two service packs, is my guess.
Well, so this product, after troubles unheard of in other systems, finally made it "stable" and "reliable".
I would not like to bet my money once again, just because I got the winning ticket once. Would you?
How many times do you pull the handle before the BSoD signifies your Jackpot?
P.S. Simple way to BSoD XP -- Use the disk manager to create and format a new drive. While drive is formatting, attempt to open an Explorer window on the drive. Kaboom!
That is all.
Okay, I can fully see why they're doing this: Slot machines are getting more and more advanced these days to bring in more consumers who aren't traditionally attracted to the "one armed bandit". So they make them more advanced with sound, video and everything else you can name. This is fine with me since I don't gamble.
But, to be fair, the Windows product line has been rightly derided for it's stability (though, IMO, Xfree is even less stable :) ) and there is the problem. Most multi-media slaot machines run on proven embedded OS's (especially QNX) and a pretty much bullet-proof becuase they are so single-focused.
I'm not sure of the size of Embedded XP, but I have feeling it will be like embedded NT and have loads of cruft that you'll never need in an embedded system -- and that just gives more stuff to go wrong.
An issue arises: GO to Las Vegas and look at the legal notices posted around, usually around the change cage -- one of them will be a big sign saying something like "in the case of mechanical or elelctronic failure or error, all payouts are declared void and all wagers are considered forfeit." What this is saying is that if your eXP multimedia slot machine BSODs and spits out 50k dollars at you, you don't get to keep it -- what's more is that any money you put into the machine as a bet is lost.
Casino aren't in this business to loose money.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
System requirements
I was under the (obviously wrong) impression that XP was a single pile that had to include IE. At least that is what the court testimony said. (I know it isn't true). Now we are told that one can build XP from small components. So why can't we unbundle XP and IE (and WMP, etc)? Can I get the parts and build an acceptable alternative pile? Can we get the court to require that XP be shipped as components?
Yeah, right. Who guarantees this? I want it in writing.
And then I want a driver for my PCMCIA network card which is neither supported with Windows 98, nor with 2000, nor with XP. It is, though, under Linux.
When did Microsoft ever guarantee anything? They say in their own EULA that their OS is unfit for 'mission critical' applications, and with the last couple months, most e-mail users and web server admins knew what itreally meant not to be able to properly fix your machine, no matter how much support contracts you had.
"People don't seem to understand that the value of a 3 year old PC is $150 and so there is no particular reason why Microsoft should limit a $100/$200 O/S so that it can run under the constraints of that machine."
no, You don't understand. People don't understand why they should buy a machine whose cost is 50% the software it runs. They don't understand why (to take your example) a simple MP3 player would need hundreds of MB of of hard disk just to drive an operating system, and the manufacturer wouldn't understand why they wouldn't be able to modify the OS to their own taste, but have to rely on the company to provide what is supposedly best for them.
And I personally don't believe that anybody can strip down XP to a level that makes it run satisfactorily on a 386 class CPU from a 4MB flash ROM that needs close to no electrical power, when the application this system is supposed to run doesn't need Gigahertz and Gigabytes.
"I don't expect any traditional UNIX kernel to do well there, the UNIX architecture was never designed for and is simply not up to RT tasks. Thats why the RT Linux varieties have major mods to the internals to support features such as guaranteed scheduling etc."
Windows "wasn't originally designed to be" multi-tasking, multi-user, not to mention even being network capable, either. And I don't think you have actually seen RTLinux yet - or MS have achieved something MUCH better than their various embedded forks of Windows since I last checked.
My point is that RTLinux is making headway fast, and I don't hear much about Windows in the embedded market. And for this, there must be a reason.
Home Page
So how is WinXP, THE biggest bloatware out there in terms of an OS (who needs all the media crap they stuffed in it when I've got all the media programs I could ever want for free on the 'net?), going to even come close to competing in an 'embedded' market place? It is THE quintessential definition of a "microprocessor of OS's" versus something like PalmOS, which I would consider much more of a "microcontroller of OS's." Microsoft is making some stupid moves, and their shareholders had better realize that MS has a good (albeit, evil) business model for making money, but they're just not going to rake in the dough with this 'latest, greatest' XP system like they hope to. It's not new or revolutionary, just shitload's worth of bug fixes to what people wanted out of Win95 originally. And I, like most people who want to be on the cutting edge of technology, am not seeing a need, or even a want, to make the upgrade to WinXP for a long time.
Hopefully for the last time: 95% of Dreamcast games do not run WinCE/DirectX. The operating system the Dreamcast uses resides on the disc, not the system ROM, and is up to the developer what OS and API to use.
Most Dreamcast games used "SegaKatana," which was Sega's own API/OS for games. It was lean, mean, and very stable.
Since the Dreamcast uses a Hitachi SH4 processor (same family as PocketPCs), Windows CE compatibility was implemented to encourage PC ports. Most WinCE games (Worms World Party, Hidden and Dangerous, etc) are notoriously buggy and ugly compared to Katana games. This is not completely WinCE's fault, as most of the developers using WinCE didn't give a rat's ass about making a good port.
Homebrew developers can also build games using gcc. Several emulators and even a version of Linux have come to Dreamcast using this toolkit.
Conclusion: Don't associate the Dreamcast with Windows CE.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
...and press any key.
Microsoft is not used to handing out money for anything except marketing, so I need to search the installation medium for the necessary driver.
Please wait, and ignore any ghasps or screams of pain and rage which may occur during this process.
[--OK--] [--Easier-to-forget-about-the-money--] [--Too-drunk-to-care--] [--Screenshot--]
.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Or, in the case of the Reign of Terror and/or sundry ``Communist'' regimes, killing each other for having an ``imaginary friend.''
imagine that... or that... or that...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
That's so the tech support people for the other Windows-based products get a legitimate break every so often from all of those whining users. And the users feel better because the tech support people have had a taste of what they face every morning. Sorry, our 'phone system went down and we couldn't find the installation CD.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
eXcess Pieces?
eXtra Pieces?
comes in X Pieces, some assembly required?
you've heard about bits, well here they are... the XP From Scratch distribution... (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Embedded? It means that the kiosk weighs so much by the time you've got it all optioned up to work acceptably, that it embeds itself in the pavement.
512MB plus gigabytes of disk for basic OS plus database components? Suuure... I can probably give you that in 512K of RAM and on one floppy! Give me a superdrive floppy and and 16MB and you can have a complete, all-singing, all dancing diskless kiosk (Galeon on FB on Linux) built out of commodity OSS components.
You want me to do embedded XP? No worries, but you supply the shovel.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Microsoft organizing its employees to advocate their embedded products in online newsgroups
Maybe that has something to do with it...
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Those are not 'critical' applications, and not the traditional embedded market either.
If a slot machine crashes, and needs to be restarted, it's not a disaster. The same for an ATM. SO long as neither will hand out oodles of cash for no reason, it's okay.
However, the flight control mechanims on a billion dollar spacecraft, or passenger jet, or fighter jet, those are *real* embedded systems.
The OS on your pacemaker, the computer in your car that controls the ABS... these are the kinds of things he means when he speaks of the 'traditional' embedded market.
Or how I like to think if it, 'computers inside things that aren't computers'. (A slot machine is kind of a computer, so is an ATM. but a car?)