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Previous: McDonald's "maximum height" pole | Main | Next: Grams software's tip of the day
August 3, 2004 12:01 AM
Broken: ATM running Windows
John Haller writes in from right here in New York:
Attached is one of the many reasons that Windows and ATM machines make a bad combination...
Everyone bangs on this, but seriously: what do you think any other OS would do if it couldn't access the hard drive/network drive? Or some piece of connected hardware fails?
Maybe because Visual Basic encourages sloppy programming practices? Sort of like how you can write good Perl without use strict, but the chances are much lower.
"What do you think any other OS would do if it couldn't access the hard drive/network drive?"
The first question is whether a general purpose O/S should be used to drive an ATM. The O/S should write the error to the system console device. That is not necessarily the same as the screen presented to the end user.
My theory? A worn-out flash disk.
CompactFlash disks, for example, can operate just like an IDE hard drive. You just get an adapter to make the pinout work. Now, you can install Windows or whatever you want on it, and it'll work for a while, but non-embedded and customized Windows installations write to the disk a lot. Flash disks wear out if you write to them a lot. Therefore, after a while in the field, the flash will fail, error messages will occur, and data will be lost.
What I see is a common problem and a source of more than a few pictures here on This Is Broken -- companies used to writing software for desktops and servers trying to write software for the embedded space.
Somewhat related: My local cable system used to run its TV Guide Channel on an Amiga. It was a dead giveaway when there was a Guru Meditation error flashing away on that channel instead of program listings. ;-)
>>>DOS isn't quite blue, last time I checked
You've never had windows crash on you? DOS isn't blue, but the 'Blue Screen of Death' is.
Micro$oft strikes again.
>>You've never had windows crash on you? DOS isn't blue, but the 'Blue Screen of Death' is.>The first question is whether a general purpose O/S should be used to drive an ATM.
So true.
| O_o
|
| Regarding my last post, something is wrong
| with the line breaks.
| That should read:
"You've never had windows crash on you?"
DOS isn't blue, but the 'Blue Screen of Death' is.
"The first question is whether a general purpose O/S should be used to drive an ATM."
So true.
DOS isn't blue, but the 'Blue Screen of Death' is.
That's kind of a truism don't you think, that the blue screen of death is indeed blue? You're not really supporting your argument that Windows has a blue error screen. Do you mean to say that the error screen for Windows is blue? :-P
Don't mean to be pedantic, but that screenshot is not of a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). The fact that you can press any key to continue shows it is not 'dead'.
Well, the so-called Blue Screen of "Death" doesn't actually mean death in every case. It's an indicator of a huge error, but with some blue-screen errors (more than one error will cause that), it's possible to return to the GUI and keep going. With others, like the one in that photo, pressing a key will force a reboot (if it responds at all).
this reminds me of a metrocard machine i was once waiting online for. someone started buying a metrocard, put in their twenty, and then it said that that machine was out of service, then after the persan banged on the machine and hit all the buttons it said restarting windows NT mta edition, but then it would hang in the restart, and restart again, restarting four times before i stopped staring at it
Hey, wait, doesn't the BSOD (shudder) usually display a fatal error/exception/fault in address FDFJ4632FSAHASHDAJ3? (that was a made up ID, but it makes about as much sense as what is displayed normally) and anyway, usually it has a second option to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart Windows. Obviously this is an embedded version and its probably different, but it seems wrong. I have a laptop with Microscotch Window$ on it, and the friggin screen always looks the same. ALWAYS. And I would know what it looks like, trust me. This one just looks wrong.
And about the DOS thing, it's usually a black BG and white text.
And Matthew, you are quite right. The stupid 'Press any key to continue' makes no sense. But it IS made by Microscotch. What else can be expected?
Hey, wait, doesn't the BSOD (shudder) usually display a fatal error/exception/fault in address FDFJ4632FSAHASHDAJ3? (that was a made up ID, but it makes about as much sense as what is displayed normally) and anyway, usually it has a second option to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart Windows. Obviously this is an embedded version and its probably different, but it seems wrong. I have a laptop with Microscotch Window$ on it, and the friggin screen always looks the same. ALWAYS. And I would know what it looks like, trust me. This one just looks wrong.
And about the DOS thing, it's usually a black BG and white text.
And Matthew, you are quite right. The stupid 'Press any key to continue' makes no sense. But it IS made by Microscotch. What else can be expected?
How would I expect an O/S to react? Just like that! However, this is an O/S that is dedicated to ONE thing- being an ATM! If it were designed properly, the %^&*~!! thing would say "Out of order" and leave the user out of it. If I go to the store and a lane is closed, I do not need to know that the cashier has a raging case of herpies. I just need to know the lane is closed. So, yeah, this is broken.... I don't need to know that there was a fatal error (as if pressing a key will help!). All I, as the end user, need to know, is that the machine is not working. Definitely broken!! Software is called SOFTware for a reason... it can be changed... make it fit the application!!
Regarding the BSOD discussions:
There are several different BSODs. The ones being described above with the hexadecimal number appear when an application causes some problem in the underlying OS. The style hear appears in the case of a hardware issues. You could get a similar one if you popped a floppy out while you were saving data to it.
In case anyone cares, the BSOD here is from one of the Windows 9x (95, 98, Me) series.
Well, the "Disk Write Error" BSOD tends to mean the hard disk has developed bad sectors on which vital system files were stored. It's utterly irrelevant to the quality or lack thereof of the OS.
The fact that it says "data or files may be lost" has gotta suck for everybody who "made any transactions." They probably don't even know that what they did made no difference in the banking system at all.
Nextran's slogan (it's in the bottom-left of the picture) is "buisness without limits." How ironic, that this ATM is buisness, but is also limited.
In my previous post, I should have put "what they did probably made no difference" instead of just "what they did made no difference," oops!
The MetroCard post reminds me: Windows NT isn't dubbed Nice Try for nothing!!! I should know... i'm using Windows XP (NT 6) to type this. I have crashes--even though XP is supposed to be stable. So much much for stable!!!
I just love it when windows xp crashes, reboots, then pops up a dialog box say that it has "recovered from a serious error" - I hardly call rebooting and losing everything that has not been saved 'recovering'
ATMs run on all sorts of OS, the previous most popular being OS/2 Warp. Now, sadly, many are migrating to Windows. As for the "data lost", not to worry - the transaction data approval/denial and database entry of user getting or depositing cash is at a central switch and banking system, not determined by the ATM itself.
I have had read write error happen to me beforw. working an old computer with a 1.2 GIG seagate harddrive with Win 98 when the desptop started loading the BSOD poped up.
It sure must be quite scary standing there with your card in the machine waiting for money and suddenly the bluescreen appears. It could be stuck in a loop, taking money from your account.
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: McDonald's "maximum height" pole | Main | Next: Grams software's tip of the day
I've seen similar photos before, but the real kicker for me was seeing one live - at one of my local ATMs, it had an error up on the screen. What's more, I know error messages well enough to know that the one I saw meant that the ATM program was made in Visual Basic. Seriously.
I normally take my camera everywhere, but I hadn't got it on this occasion, which really bummed me out. Ah well, maybe next time.
Posted by: Ciaran at August 3, 2004 05:34 AM