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QNX: When an OS Really, Really Has to Work
An anonymous reader writes "Fortune has this article about how QNX's OS has found a niche and is doing well. Especially after 1996 when Microsoft executives said they would crush them in 2 years. When your software absolutely positively needs to work!"
WinCE a good embedded system? Hmm.. Isn't that the WinCE that is at the heart of PocketPC? The embedded OS that brought blue screens of death (well, ok, depending on your color scheme a light khaki screen of death) to PDAs? Yeah. I trust WinCE to run my heart monitor if I ever end up in an Intensive Care Unit... *cough*
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
I read Slashdot using QNX, on an Audrey. I almost bought another one at a garage sale today for $20, but it had no power supply. Plus the keyboard was Lime.
1. Crush your enemies 2. See them driven before you 3. Hear the lamentations of their women 4. ? 5. Profit!!
"I'm not high, just stupid" --JY
I'm pretty sure AOL, RealPlayer, and Bonzi Buddy will find a way to crash QNX.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Good thing the FAA uses QNX, cause if they ran MS software, it would go something like this:
Air Traffic Boss: How's it going?
Air Traffic Controller: Fine.
Boss: What's That? (Points to blue screen)
Controller: Oh, that happens when we try to track more than three planes.
Boss: Why does it do that?
Controller: We only purchased a 3-plane license. If we try to track 4, Palladium kicks in, and the whole thing locks up.
Boss: Doesn't that sound, you know, dangerous?
Controller: Not as dangerous as this! (plays an illegal mp3, sirens blow, and all machines are shut down, power is cut off, forcing runway lights to turn off, while planes crash like crazy.)
About a year ago, I was called out to do field service. When I got to the lady's house and was let in, the first thing I noticed was the smell of gunpowder. The second, the double barreled 12-gauge shotgun lying on the couch. Third, the big gaping hole in the side of her computer. (It was one of those Macs where the CPU and monitor are in the same housing.)
I looked at her. She was a little grey haired woman, around 60 or so. Had she? Not possible. Still, I had to ask.
I mumbled something about not being a Mac tech and told her I would send one out as soon as I could. Then I burned rubber out of there.
About a month later, my boss called me in; he had the woman on hold. She had apparently complained that I was not competent and that I had lied when I said I would send out a competent Mac tech -- or perhaps I just hadn't been able to find anyone competent working for us. I filled him in. He paused for a second, picked up the phone, and said, "Ma'am? Did you put a shotshell into your computer? ... Uh huh...I'm sorry, ma'am, we really can't...well, no.... I'll try to send one out.... Nice doing business with you...." He hung up, looked at me, and said, "You think any of our Mac techs will go?" I shook my head. "Me neither."
We heard from her again last week, when my boss told me that the woman had called up to cuss me out, saying not only was I a "young whippersnapper" but also a liar, since one of our competitors had fixed her computer just fine, even fixing the little scratches and stuff on the monitor glass. That sounded fishy, so I went over and talked with the techs. After a case of canned drinks and a few bags of junk food, I wormed the whole story out of them. Apparently, about the only salvagable part was the hard drive (which the buckshot had missed), so they took it out, went out and bought a whole new computer, slapped the hard drive in, and presented it to the lady as her repaired computer -- of course charging her an arm and a leg.
~Idarubicin
It does, however, provide a familar GUI for embedded devices...
I think it is reaching to call WinCE's interface familiar. My first reaction upon using a PocketPC was, "wtf is going on?!"
I guess it is more familiar than, I dunno, cattle prod torture, but that isn't saying much.
I love my iPAQ anyway though.
Zzzzot!