Splash-screen memories from a Bangkok ticket machine There's no keeping an obsolete operating system down, although keeping it operational can sometimes be a challenge, if public terminals are any indication. Today's bork uses an OS that dates back 26 years, but is still serving up train tickets. Windows 2000 Professional seems to be a popular choice for ticket machine operators …
Just another example of why you should use Linux to ensure a stable environment.
Some day, Fortune 1000 CEOs will finally get the message, after pouring untold millions into lost work time and profits due to Borkzilla's ever-repeating failures.
Someday.
Thank God I'm only a few years away from retirement. . .
I'd trust Win 2000 way more than some newer versions. At least it isn't running Copilot enabled Windows 11. Assuming it could actually boot into the software without crashing, it'd likely start hallucinating trying to sell tickets to destinations that don't exist in currencies that aren't of this universe.
AI can indeed mess up your train maps big time - like this example reported quite recently, How anyone can publish that without realizing the obvious errors is remarkable.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/warrington-warrington-via-manchester-airpont-33232632
For foreign users, there is only one place called Warrington, and it should be in Cheshire, while Hull is on the coast... Mind you it may explain the delays to other rail projects too,
Mke
Back then I suspect Microsoft's national language support (and all the i16n & L14n stuff) was a bit ahead of Linux (Thai has its own "alphabet" and numerals.†)
Although proprietary Unixes based on system V.3 and particularly V.4 might have been up to the task.
† makes reading the street signs in Bangkok a challenge but managed to negotiate our way to the Democracy [sic] Monument with a German map (it was nearly impossible to obtain maps of SE Asian cities in the late 1990s. Probably still is.)
"Some day, Fortune 1000 CEOs will finally get the message ..."
Some day the GNU/Linux zealots will get why CEOs allow windows within the organisation. When that happens the situation WILL change.
However rather than doing that, why not create another distribution and ten more text editors.
Windows is terrible for a lot of things (particulalry the amount of data that gets sent back to microsoft with little or no knowledge of the user, let alone consent), but one thing it does have is mature and powerful systems for deployment and management at scale.
We use System Center at work, and while it's a beast that ideally you need training, and time to master, it's powerful. I could, should I need to, log on to the Console and get thousands of machines to wipe themselves, reinstall windows and any software needed for the machine. This would take a couple of days to complete, and in terms of my interaction, about 30 seconds. I am not going to do so because it would be too disruptive. Want an application on 1,000 machines? Ignoring the time required for creating and testing the deployment, it would take, again, about 30 seconds of interaction and a couple of days. If Microsoft issue a new update, we can have it on 99% of our estate 48 hours after it completes testing.
Linux is also good, particularly on machines that aren't necessarily as powerful as the latest machines. Despite how this post might sound, I love Linux.
But Linux has problems. One of which is the sheer number of distributions. I like Ubuntu, but if I were a newbie, how would I know which linux to use? There are dozens, all seemingly very similar. Also, I had a project at work a few years ago. We needed a lot of digital signs quickly and had almost no budget to install them, so couldn't afford the £1000 windows based totems used elsewhere.
i came up with an incredibly cheap solution involving mounting a raspberry pi on the back of a monitor and mounting the monitor where we wanted signs. The Pi's would just have displayed a webpage, or still graphic with the sign. It would have cost about £150 per unit as opposed to £1000. I'm not counting power or networking, because both solutions would likely have needed that.
Our IT department refused to authorise the project unless I came up with a decent way of managing updates to the Pis. I considered Pi Server (the Raspberry Pi produced VM that enabled netbooting pis (which would have made updating them easy), but it didn't look like it would scale up.
I needed an integrated management system that could, in theory, manage hundreds of pis. I asked on various Linux forums (and on here), and didn't get a sensible answer, with every query being answered by a general "Use Linux U noob" type response, and usually a lot less polite than that.
Sadly, becase of that, my company just bought a few more totems (they can be managed with our existing infrastructure) and called it a day.
Unfortunately, in that case, ideology lost out to practicality, even though practicality cost more.
> ...ten more text editors.
It's vi all the way down baby!
Joking (?) aside, you're comparing fast food with healthy eating. The masses accepting something doesn't make it the best thing, that's marketing. Zealots on both sides are unlikely advocates for the best fit. So yeah, a greasy burger is nice every now and again, but needing to run to the loo[1] every first Tuesday of the month has gotta be a clue it's not good for you.
One man's meat is another man's poison. Enjoy :D
[1] Edit: "restroom" for my Left Pondian cousins :)
"Just another example of why you should use Linux to ensure a stable environment."
Not even Linux can prevent hardware issues. I remember a VERY long flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow with a flight entertainment system on board that only displayed console output while trying to load a driver that didn't want to play ball.
Something can always break.
Bangkok, Oriental setting
And the city don't know what the city is getting
The crème de la crème of the tech world
In a show with everything but an up-to-date Windows OS
Time flies—doesn't seem a minute
Since Windows 2000 had the chess boys playing with it
All change—don't you know that when you
Play at this level there's no ordinary venue?
It's Iceland—or the Philippines—or Hastings—or—
Or this place!
"Originally branded Windows NT 5.0, Microsoft decided that calling it "2000" would help customers embrace NT after enduring the joys of Windows 95 and Windows 98.".
This is most likely because it was intended to be the direct replacement for the DOS-based 98 SE, i.e. the next mainstream version of Windows.
Unfortunately, legacy compatibility issues meant they had to put that on hold (hence presumably why the DOS-based ME came out instead) and it wasn't until XP that the main Windows line finally moved from DOS to an NT-based version.
