offer - OS/2 for the PDP-11

[Liam Proven]

On 07/01/2008, madodel <madodel at ptdprolog.net> wrote:
> Liam Proven wrote:
> > 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?
> >
>
> I've been using OS/2 since version 1.3.

So you came in after me, then. :¬)

> I'm fairly well acquainted with
> its capabilities.  Yes I can be wrong and maybe you saw what you think you
> saw, but all you have is a story.  Where is your proof other then that you
> think you saw it was OS/2?   I can't prove a negative, but you should be
> able to prove that it did happen.

How, exactly? You want a photograph? Sorry, but even if I had one,
such things are readily photoshopped now. If you want signed witness
statements, well, again, expect to be disappointed.

I know OS/2. It's one of a tiny handful of programs for the PC I've
ever actually bought with my own money; indeed I suspect I've spent
more on OS/2 than on all other PC software put together.

I know an OS/2 command prompt when I see one.

I also know that OS/2 was once very widely used in cash machines; this
is well-known and an objective fact, and indeed cash machines were one
of the last strongholds of OS/2.

So what is it that you have difficulty believing? That OS/2 crashes?
Hint: run up a Warp box, put Fractint on it, and try some of the
clever hacked VGA screen modes. Watch the TRAP errors abound.

That an ATM's software would be so badly written that it would fail to
a command prompt? If that is the case, you must have led a very
sheltered life.

That someone has seen something you personally have not? Again, this
is a very widespread occurrence.

> If this were a common occurrence then we would be able to find some
> documentation of it other then just someone's antidotal remembrance

I think you perhaps mean "anecdotal", as in an anecdotal account.

>  that it
> might have happened and it might have been OS/2.  There is ample evidence
> of crashed windoze ATMs on the net.  Like I said I have never seen that.

You don't get out much, then!

Google for it. Try an image search for "atm crash". Here's a gallery,
including a crashed OS/2 airport terminal:
http://julian.coccia.com/gallery/wincrashes

> But I've never seen a crashed windoze ATM either.  I have seen broken ATM's
> but never at an OS/2 prompt.  And as I also posted, if the original ATM
> code programmer had known what they were doing then the program itself
> should have been set as the shell, so no command prompt should have ever
> been attainable.

So in summary, all you're saying is that you've never seen it and you
find it surprising that there are programmers who are so incompetent?

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
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