offer - OS/2 for the PDP-11

[Liam Proven]

On 05/01/2008, madodel <madodel at ptdprolog.net> wrote:
> jd wrote:
> > Jules Richardson wrote:
> >> jd wrote:
> >>> Jules Richardson wrote:
> >>>> (Having said that, some ATM machines in the UK ran OS/2 for years after
> >>>> it was a dead OS elsewhere - [snipsnip] )
> >>>>
> >>> It's been used in some ATM's in the States, too. People have mentioned
> >>> getting to the desktop or a shell and manipulating ATM's from there,
> >>> somehow.
> >> Weird. I've certainly seen at least one UK ATM fall over and break out
> >> of its program (this was quite a few years ago) - but I'm amazed that
> >> anyone would design an ATM in such a way that the keypad buttons were
> >> directly readable by the native OS for just that reason.
> >
> > Considering how naive about physical and electronic security just
> > about everyone was then, I would not be at all surprised. This was at
> > about the time OS/2 first came out and found it's way into industrial
> > equipment, I think. The KISS mentality was still in full effect and
> > hardware design for ATM's still consisted of collecting off-the-shelf
> > components and tossing them together. An ATM would have just one
> > console and that would be the front monitor and keypad, often by
> > default, and the rear monitor and keypad or keyboard, if so equipped,
> > that would require using a hardware or software switch, like those old
> > Inmac KVM-without-the-M switch boxes. Of course, for convenience, it
> > was possible to do stuff from the front keypad, such as use a
> > maintenance menu. Eventually, when ATM design evolved, such convenient
> > features faded into oblivion.
>
> I have never seen an OS/2 based ATM at a command prompt.  It must have been
> a windoze based ATM.  And many ATMs still run OS/2.  It is only being
> replaced by windoze on new models since IBM refused to support the hardware
> any more.

You are very confident for someone asserting that another person has
not seen  something that they say they have. How can you know?

Lots of ATMs & other bank financial systems ran OS/2. I have watched
staff at 2 of the banks I deal with routinely - the Woolwich Building
Society (now owned by Barclays) and Nationwide Building Society
working with OS/2 systems in the last year.

I, too, have also encountered crashed ATMs which have dropped to an
OS/2 command prompt, several times. I used to be an OS/2 user myself;
that [C:\] prompt is very distinctive. On at least one, the keypad did
still generate numbers, too; alas, I had no Alt key, or I could have
entered ASCII, very slowly, and who knows, given long enough, maybe
worked out how to persuade the thing to empty its cash drawers for me.
:¬)

But with no Alt and no Enter, there's not much you can do except type numbers.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com • MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com
Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk • Skype: liamproven • ICQ: 73187508