Its quite simple why Altavista sucks now. They used to be Altavista.digital.com because digital ran it. Digital had pride, after all, the built the fastest single chip processor in the world, why not have the best search engine. For a time they did. However, Digital's marketing dept couldn't seem to sell the best product (what a bunch of idiots if you ask me), so digital was bought out. Without Digital's influence, Altavista no longer had any drive to be the best. Just like the Alpha, its unfortuente to see some of Digitals best projects languish to obscurity, after all, HPQ killed Alpha within the past 6 months or so. Apperently competition with intel is bad*Palladium edit, Violation of EULA, do bashing intel*
Yeah, but the wintell computers up front can't be toutch screen based on how they are used. They also are terminals, they store NO ticket data. All of that is transmitted via ethernet to the linux box. in other words, you can restart a front room computer at any point, and NEVER lose data. Its reliable, plus the keyboard credit card readers have no linux support. A large cooperation such as Radioshack corp needs support to use something such as that up front.
While the front computers used for the point of sale are windows98, (the keyboards and scanners are not suppored by linux), the backroom is all linux. No wonder it is actually stable. IN addition, an old IBM P100 runs most stores, and the lag isn't terrible. Chaulk one up for linux's speed and reliablity. After all, this system has been in place for over 3 years, and had almost zero problems. If only radioshack sold redhat...
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Its quite simple why Altavista sucks now. They used to be Altavista.digital.com because digital ran it. Digital had pride, after all, the built the fastest single chip processor in the world, why not have the best search engine. For a time they did. However, Digital's marketing dept couldn't seem to sell the best product (what a bunch of idiots if you ask me), so digital was bought out. Without Digital's influence, Altavista no longer had any drive to be the best. Just like the Alpha, its unfortuente to see some of Digitals best projects languish to obscurity, after all, HPQ killed Alpha within the past 6 months or so. Apperently competition with intel is bad*Palladium edit, Violation of EULA, do bashing intel*
Yeah, but the wintell computers up front can't be toutch screen based on how they are used. They also are terminals, they store NO ticket data. All of that is transmitted via ethernet to the linux box. in other words, you can restart a front room computer at any point, and NEVER lose data. Its reliable, plus the keyboard credit card readers have no linux support. A large cooperation such as Radioshack corp needs support to use something such as that up front.
While the front computers used for the point of sale are windows98, (the keyboards and scanners are not suppored by linux), the backroom is all linux. No wonder it is actually stable. IN addition, an old IBM P100 runs most stores, and the lag isn't terrible. Chaulk one up for linux's speed and reliablity. After all, this system has been in place for over 3 years, and had almost zero problems. If only radioshack sold redhat...