What is Digg?487 Comments
- lithera, on 07/08/2008, -13/+312No. 5 Train engine controls
Now that is some scary *****...... Blue Screen of Death get's a whole different meaning this way. - StealthyMong, on 07/09/2008, -137/+37811. On a personal computer
- Castor385, on 07/09/2008, -15/+244I know for fact that some medical equipment uses windows as an OS. But the engineers have been working for several year along with microsoft to create a crash-free environment. These things are stress tested for over 6 months. If anything fails, they start over again: fix the mistakes and test again, for 6 months. This equipment does not use your average windows xp installation you would use at home.
I think the author is a bit prejudiced about windows. - kraetos, on 07/08/2008, -35/+215I'm sure there's a lot more than 10. A lot of money gets wasted on Windows where Linux or a home-grown embedded OS would do.
- MacroDaemon, on 07/09/2008, -12/+145I agree that Windows shouldn't be used for many of those purposes. The reason, however, is not because it's Windows, but because you get better reliability out of small specialist software. I'd rather not see these things running Ubuntu, Debian or Redhat either.
- chris9902, on 07/09/2008, -40/+165Lets see how bad this article is using quotes
"Oh, occasionally they display a blue screen with a Windows error notice."
"It would be open source most likely and would not need to be updated every month."
"they would freeze up due to memory leaks"
"Now, I did not get confirmation that the train ran on Windows"
"Why make them worse with Windows?"
"how do you explain to your CEO that your plant is down because of a virus"
"How many of those systems harbor Trojan horses today?"
and lets just round this out with the best quote about Windows;
"People could lose their lives."
This is why I come to digg, for the comedy. - SomeImagination, on 07/08/2008, -9/+111Thats the stupidest comment I've seen in a while
- wality, on 07/09/2008, -12/+94I am personally responsible for items 6, 7, and 9. I work for a Process Controls company and have installed systems for Pharmaceutical companies, power plants, natural gas plants, VX Nerve agent disposal, one plant that produces the Anthrax antibody, Ethanol plants, and plants in the food industry. Literally thousands of servers and workstations.
All on Windows 2003, XP, and NT
All Dell
Some connected to the plant network
Zero viruses
They are on Windows in order to provide the wide array of hardware/software options that Apple can't and does not want to match. When I need to install a system in a plant that produces blogs, music playlists, and home movies, I am sure Apple will be up to the task. Until that time we need PCs for working in an industrial environment and there is nothing better than the hardware and software options available with Windows.
Buried for FUD. - Murdats, on 07/09/2008, -5/+77that and why does he think EVERY windows device is on the internet? how would isolated life support systems, MRI systems, scanning/printing systems, machine control systems be on the internet? they do not need access to google and at most maybe need access to an intranet, maybe.
or maybe windows is soo crap it can catch human viruses, maybe absorbs them from the air, perhaps windows is designed to occasionally generate its own viruses, or maybe this was just a biased author being an idiot. - Gullop, on 07/09/2008, -14/+84Whine whine whine whine whine whine.
- Nayson, on 07/09/2008, -0/+53Im a train driver, so ill inject a dose of reality here.
Firstly ill say i live in England so obviously the trains i work with will be different to ones in San Diego but trains do have on board computers. So do cars. So do aeroplanes. Whether its a Windows OS or not is irrelevant, though i doubt it is Windows very much.
The computers monitor things, they dont control train movement. They have the ability to stop a train moving, they have the ability to deny the train power in order to pull away. They control things like the doors, the air conditioning, the information screens.
Train brakes are controlled mechanically. The accelerator is controlled mechanically. Things like doors which are computer controlled can be over-ridden mechanically.
Its a giggle thinking that buggy software might be the only thing between you and doom on your next train ride, but its not very realistic. Just like your car, important things like brakes on a train are mechanical. - ironeus, on 08/01/2008, -11/+59the ATM security flaw has to be closer to #1 since it directly affected the general public!
- kraetos, on 07/08/2008, -6/+50Nope, stupidest is a word, and Google is your friend.
- drunkinbda, on 07/09/2008, -7/+47lol you fanboys never open your eyes. Linux is good to you becasue you use it and understand its quirks. Windows is good for others because its not a hobby. Windows generally just works, and i dont want to spend hours or days trying to figure out why two files dont want to work together. Windows and its 3rd party developers have SUPPORT SITES... wtih support help to get it just working.
Linux has community based support forums which are rarely tailored for hte specific software in question (have to hope you find an answer on the linux forums), and then you have to try to do the fix yourself with what you read (which often screws other stuff up if you arent careful).
Yes there are times windows should not be used on systems, as in some of these examples where a small OS that doesnt need constant administrations. People dont think windows is better because its expensive, they think its better because its generally all inclusive and far more user friendly.. and finding support is much simpler for those who dont have or dont care to have an intimate knowledge of the systems inner workings. - inactive, on 07/09/2008, -4/+43I'm about 95% certain that you failed English.
- inactive, on 07/09/2008, -14/+51Does this idiot ever consider that they aren't connected to the internet, and are therefore perfectly secure?
- inactive, on 07/09/2008, -5/+41These problems have nothing to do with the OS and everything to do with the quality of software that runs the process. Yes, there are ***** bird solutions written for *nix too. Bad software is bad software.
- WoundedCow, on 07/09/2008, -11/+46You can't swim any faster pointing at the mud in someone else's fins.
- rodrigo74, on 07/09/2008, -0/+34Just because a different OS is running underneath does not imply greater safety; people can write crappy buggy code on any platform. I would be more interested on knowing what was the language and the methodology used to develop the software, how much testing the thing went through, or just chill out and hope everything will be alright, and that the guys at the control center and the driver had a good, sober night's sleep.
- paulzov, on 07/09/2008, -12/+46I can confirm that the boeing airplanes use linux, at least those used by AirCanada. BSOD 1000s of feet up in the air O_o what a nightmare that would be.
- Totz83, on 07/09/2008, -19/+48My nearest ATM uses windows, one time it blue-screened me. I ***** you not
- wTheOnew, on 07/09/2008, -2/+30Kernel panic at 1000s of feet up in the air. It doesn't matter what platform it's built on as long as there are redundancies and I'm sure there is even when they use Linux.
- fatjoe, on 07/09/2008, -5/+32maybe so but I think this article, though not on purpose,
shows how successfull microsoft has been in creating a unified platform for businesses to operate on. - CitrusC, on 07/09/2008, -11/+37I think you'll find if IT departments insisted on Linux, and home users started using Linux or Macs, the viruses writers would focus on those OS instead. That's the problem with Windows being so popular - malicious individuals are always going to target what will get them the most money/what will cause the most damage, after all.
I worked with the British MOD version of Windows XP last year, and although it is more secure in terms of virus & malware protection, this still doesn't counter the fact that each and every solider using the system is liable to do a good bit of damage to try and get past the website restrictions, get on MSN Messenger, look at porn, etc.
The company I'm working with at the moment uses a mix of Windows Vista Business Edition and Linux PCs, and we've never had any security-related issues whatsoever; Windows Vista is probably the most stable OS I've worked with (especially since SP1) - as crazy as it may sound, only one out of about 50 Vista PCs has ever BSOD'd on me, and that was due to the user trying to force it to install Windows 98 drivers for his 5-year old MP3 player. (which is prohibited under company policy anyway)
...But I digress! An amusing article, I certainly wouldn't want a Windows-powered ATM! *laughs* - marx2k, on 07/09/2008, -0/+25FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP
- Abomonog, on 07/09/2008, -4/+29Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch.
- inactive, on 07/09/2008, -5/+30Wow that was a really interesting story.
- silver26, on 07/09/2008, -0/+24nom nom nom nom nom nom
- ketemphor, on 07/09/2008, -4/+27Agreed. Even in the short time I've worked with industrial control and test systems, pretty much all the computers use Windows.
The thing most people don't get is that on a control system interface on a production line or test system, the only thing installed is the control software. And if the company is worth much of anything, they'll have it locked down so nothing else can be installed once it's deployed. Ideally, they'd have it set up so that the main control app autolaunches on operator login and there's not so much as a start button otherwise to fiddle with.
Modern-day, single-app, single-purpose Windows machines are about as stable as anything I've seen. If you get crashes on a properly vetted system (read, the software itself isn't buggy), it's generally due to a hardware problem, and that's going to screw you on any system you deploy, regardless of OS. - KhaaL, on 07/09/2008, -2/+24When I was at a MS seminar a few years ago, the guy speaking said that they don't let their products touch the medical and military area. So even Microsoft advices against #10
- CosmicJustice, on 07/09/2008, -12/+33A lot of money gets wasted screwing around trying to get Linux installed/working when a few bucks for an OEM copy of Windows can make the problem go away. My time is worth something.
- netdroid9, on 07/09/2008, -1/+20Between blaming memory leaks and the public availability of elevator controls on Windows and Microsoft, it's pretty clear that if there was any more anti-Microsoft bias it'd be offensive to Linux users too.
Most of these systems shouldn't even *have* an operating system, the reason they do is likely the fault of lazy programmers who're so used to a single software ecosystem that they can't ball up and write their own interrupt handlers and framebuffer. Then again, I may be underestimating the retardation of upper management, too.
You see apparently professional stuff hacked together from consumer products all over the place. The train timetabling software for QR (the only rail network in Queensland, Australia) runs on old Amigas, and I'm sure you can find at least a couple IBM-PC compatible hand dryers if you looked hard enough. And let's not even *mention* the Windows-CE-based Diebold *****. - AussieFox, on 07/09/2008, -3/+22Have to agree, this is less about Windows and more about it being used for things it isn't really designed to do, or just bad programming
Like #1. Whatever you may think of Windows, you won't crash it just by having it display a green arrow, even over long periods of time. Not unless you have faulty programming or hardware - davdev, on 07/09/2008, -0/+18Not to mention the claim about the medical devices is just wrong. I work in the IT department of a hospital. Yes the FDA does have strict testing protocols when doing a system upgrade, however, they are not stupid enough to prevent patches and routine maintainance from being done. If we are doing major upgrades to our systems we need to report and submit testing notes to the FDA, however, if we are just doing security patches and such, we do not
- LiquidShield, on 07/09/2008, -2/+20@Drunkinbda
HOLY CRAP that is the first intelligent thing I have read all day in this. That is completely true. I will agree with you both OS's have their highs as well as lows, and I will give you an updigg. - MacParrot, on 07/09/2008, -3/+19I don't think you can say fairly that it's all Windows' fault. Badly written programs will de-stable or crash almost any OS.
- zelzin, on 07/09/2008, -1/+16Moan moan moan moan moan moan.
- MacFlecknoe, on 07/09/2008, -1/+16Just because the machines themselves arent directly connected to the internet doesnt mean that they are secure. SCADA systems for example are normally controlled via machines on a network which may or may not be online.
The article itself IS brain dead however... I dont use Windows as I prefer the Unix command line but I HATE it when fanboys spew Windows FUD. If you want to have your argument taken seriously please back your claims with some kind of logic. This guy just presumes prima facia that "Windows sux0rs" and anyone who uses it "suX0rs 2!". Lame. - Pittance, on 07/09/2008, -2/+17Blue Screen of OHMYGODHEADONTRAINCRASH!
- andrewtheart, on 07/09/2008, -5/+19This is the exact kind of logic typical of of someone who doesn't fully understand the Linux usage dilemma. How's Vista going for you?
- SpeedSteamBoat, on 07/09/2008, -3/+17Yeah, it's pretty absurd. The idea that machines which have reason, and probably no ability, to be connected to the internet could get "viruses and worms" is just silliness. That alone is enough for me to bury this ridiculous article. I never understand things like this. With so many REAL reasons to criticize Windows why must some people still make things up and blow them out of proportion?
- UsablePuddle, on 07/09/2008, -15/+29Obligatory comment trolling Mac/Linux trolls
- kestrel7e7, on 07/09/2008, -6/+19But then you need expensive specialists to work the specialist software and if they leave, you're screwed. Windows makes sense because of its ubiquity.
- hollyminkowski, on 07/09/2008, -4/+17I do software for Medical equipment and I certainly would wince if someone suggested Windows for a task. We use microcontrollers, some running a RTOS and some just purely custom code.
Most of the things on that list could be run using a less than $3 dollar controller and a simple circuit...what a huge waste of energy and risk of failure Windows offers for these simple tasks :-(
Stupid...just plain stupid. - GorfTron, on 07/09/2008, -19/+31I wonder if anyone has estimated the lost man-hours to the totality of windows instability? Boggles the mind.
- Murdats, on 07/09/2008, -1/+13except there he was guessing, he heard computer + turning on = windows.
- FKnight, on 07/09/2008, -1/+13@buddyfarr
Anyone running a computer in 2008, REGARDLESS of operating system, with less than 2GB of RAM just needs to shut up about hardware requirements for any piece of software. - brstilson, on 07/09/2008, -4/+15"7. Manufacturing controls
Now we are getting to lala land. Imagine having your manufacturing plant rely on Windows. If you are the plant manager how do you explain to your CEO that your plant is down because of a virus? But I am here to tell you that Windows on machine controllers is becoming standard. Crazy, but the truth. "
Windows may be used on Industrial PCs and the like, but the vast majority of actual machine control is done on PLCs, with the Windows machines responsible for things like operator interface and data collection. I use a system like this at work actually. The actual machines are networked via DH+ (A proprietary protocol of Rockwell Automation) and I can control them with a program called RSView. I suppose if someone hacked into our VPN network and guessed my computer's IP address, they could cause some problems. - zeeohsix, on 07/09/2008, -2/+13actually Windows CE is used as "stripped down" version for
"graphical user interfaces, (point of sale terminals, media centers, web tablets, thin clients...real-time operating system (RTOS)" -
Show 51 - 100 of 490 discussions
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is