10 ms·
The NYC subway system runs on OS/2
- orionblastar 7y agohttp://www.osfree.org http://www.osfree.org The free and open source OS/2 clone OS. Some things cannot be ported to Windows.
- todd3834 7y agoSomeone once told me that a lot of the big navy ships run on a customized version of Windows XP! Can anyone here confirm?
- todd3834 7y agohttps://www.computerworld.com/article/2939435/us-navy-paid-millions-to-stay-on-windows-xp.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2939435/us-navy-paid-m...
- userbinator 7y agoInterestingly, in 2011 they were still using MS-DOS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_110129-N-7676W-152_Culinary_Specialist_3rd_Class_John_Smith_uses_the_existing_DOS-based_food_service_management_system_aboard_the_aircraft.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_110129-N-7676W-15... ...and a lot of (physical) stores still use a DOS-based application for their POS systems, judging by the appearance, although they might not actually be running it on DOS but a later version of Windows.
- reaperducer 7y agoIn some of the big department stores the POS is still a dumb terminal. You don't mess with what works.
- dredmorbius 7y agoSCO UnixWare / OpenServer was the basis for many POS systems, with curses displays resembling (though not) DOS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenServer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenServer
- StudyAnimal 7y agoWoah only 9 million , , that is a bargain and certainly a lot cheaper than the alternative. I thought MS would have charged military prices.
- mr_toad 7y agoNot just the US navy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_Command_System#SMCS-NG_as_first_deployment_of_%22Windows_for_Warships%22 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_Command_System#SMC...
- AnaniasAnanas 7y agoNon-mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_Command_System#SMCS-NG_as_first_deployment_of_%22Windows_for_Warships%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_Command_System#SMCS-...
- wrs 7y agoI went with some other Microsoft folks on a tour of a ballistic missile sub 15 (?) years ago. The missile control room had a PC running Windows NT 3.51. The person in charge saw the nervous looks we were giving each other and understood our concern immediately. He assured us the PC was just for keeping logs, and the computer behind us, a thing the size of two large refrigerators that based on appearance could have contained vacuum tubes, was in control of the missiles. We all breathed a sigh of relief.
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y agoBut what did the big computer run?
- bayareanative 7y agoWindows XP Embedded counts as a RTOS.
- anticensor 7y agoIt does not. Windows kernel is not real-time.
- Thorrez 7y agoWell there's probably not a whole lot of OS/2 ransomware, so they're less likely to wind up in the situation of the San Francisco Muni https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/you-hacked-appears-at-muni-stations-as-fare-payment-system-crashes/ https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/you-hacked-appears-at-muni-s...
- ma2rten 7y agoI don't think it's better security-wise to run software which doesn't get updates since 17 years.
- zrobotics 7y ago"IBM had long given up on it, even allowing another company to maintain the software in 2001. (These days, a firm named Arca Noae sells an officially supported version of OS/2, ArcaOS, though most of its users are in similar situations to the MTA.)" So I suppose there are still updates. As an aside, at $129 for the personal edition [0] I want to pick it up just for the novelty of having an OS/2 machine running on modern hardware. [0] https://www.arcanoae.com/shop/arcaos-5-personal-edition/ https://www.arcanoae.com/shop/arcaos-5-personal-edition/
- kristiandupont 7y agoIt means that they are an easier target for intentional attacks, but less likely to be hit by some in-the-wild virus or ransomware.
- inferiorhuman 7y agoIt's worth noting that Muni's train control software was OS/2 based for quite a while. Unsure if they've upgraded to the newer Windows(?) based version since then. It was an off-the-shelf setup sold by Alcatel/Thales. Garbage at that. Despite being internet connected (sfmunicentral.com) I don't think it was effected by the downtime that the point-of-sale systems saw. That site came about after someone discovered a publicly accessible "admin" interface.
- jancsika 7y ago
- RyanAF7 7y agoFavorite quote from the article, "Despite the failure of OS/2 in the consumer market, it was hilariously robust..." Would this make the NYC subway system more or less prone to hacking? Can't imagine there are a ton of exploits in OS/2 that modern hackers would know about.
- userbinator 7y agoIt's likely not even connected to the Internet.
- Spooky23 7y agoProbably about the same. The OS/2 era was when IBM had maximum leverage on NY government as buying them was seen as saving jobs as IBM was laying off thousands.
- gruez 7y agoDoes os/2 even have TCP/IP support?
- sys_64738 7y agoWe used it at work way back when. The version we used had a TCP/IP package that could be installed and removed as it was heavy on resources. Details are fuzzy.
- azinman2 7y agoOs/2 warp was heavily promoted as an amazing internet experience.
- freehunter 7y agoIf you're running Warp, yes. I believe it's dial-up only though.
- shereadsthenews 7y agoNope. Ran Warp on a PC with a PCI bus Ethernet adapter and TCP. Worked fine.
- Maxious 7y agoThe trains in Melbourne ran on a DEC PDP-11/84 based signalling system. In 2003 they started to move the application to PC running Windows XP using a special processor card to virtualise the old CPUs although "Due to the core software limitation (no source code available) we were compelled to integrate some original PDP-11 computer cards into the final product and this resulted in a hybrid PC platform" https://www.equicon.de/images/Virtualisierung/LegacyTrainControlSystemStabilization.pdf https://www.equicon.de/images/Virtualisierung/LegacyTrainCon...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- xvilka 7y agoWhy not to hire a reverse engineering company and restore the source code for them?
- DividableMiddle 7y agoGeneral question: how much would one of these services cost? Any references to any?
- xvilka 7y agoIt depends heavily on target, architecture, used programming languages, binary size, if the binaries were stripped, etc. From $1k to millions.
- adrianN 7y agoWould that be legal?
- xvilka 7y agoIt is is their own code, why not? In the worst case there is always clean room reverse engineering.
- 7y ago
- jtl999 7y agoSimilar situation in Vancouver as of 2010.
- myrandomcomment 7y agoI used OS/2 on a 486DX-66 back in the day at home. I ran also ran it on a my first SMP system - Dual PPro (custom IBM build that did SMP - I worked there at the time and even wrote some code for it). It was rock solid for the most part. I still miss parts of the GUI - the ability to rip off a template for printer or a Doc, etc. There are still things that the latest OS just do not do well. Biggest issue was alway the single input queue issue in the GUI that could lock up the GUI but the system would just keep running. Also Galactic Civilizations was a damn good game and only on OS/2 at the time - https://www.stardock.com/stardock/articles/article_sdos2.html https://www.stardock.com/stardock/articles/article_sdos2.htm...
- deathanatos 7y agoI think I played some sort of predecessor to that game, called Star Emperor?[1] But from the first link in your link… they also made Trials of Battle! That it's listed under "Other Products" does not do it justice, IMO. And Stellar Frontier. I did not realize how much of their stuff I had played. [1]: https://www.os2world.com/games/index.php/native-games/strategy/306-star-emperor https://www.os2world.com/games/index.php/native-games/strate...
- johnnycab 7y ago>I used OS/2 on a 486DX-66 back in the day at home. The 486DX2-66 (Socket 3) was near identical clock-doubled version of 486DX-33. I apologise for being pedantic.
- protomyth 7y agoGiven what I have seen in some large corporations, I honestly believe that eBay has the data on which companies use very old computers in mission critical processes. The amount of "vintage" parts that were bought off sellers on eBay by a couple of corporations I was at was rather large. It amazes me what has to happen for some companies to realize that your logistic system needing parts from eBay is a bad thing.
- hanniabu 7y agoIt's the "whatever keeps it moving" mindset rather than the "take a hit now for a better return later" mindset. I used to work as a Colgate factory making liquid soap and it blew my mind how poor of a condition their machinery was in and how it was run. Machines help together literally with ductape, zipties, and miscellaneous objects that we could find around the plant to repurpose or materials we could find at Walmart (it's the only place around open 24hrs). Many times machines would be down and instead of fixing them we would just "throw people" at the issue and keep the lines running with manual labor, creating an insane amount of inefficiency and waste so that there's no "downtime".
- xzel 7y agoThat shows how little value most labor has, unfortunately, versus how much money can be make just keep the business running. It’s a simple computation for anyone upstairs.
- llukas 7y agoDepending of exact set KPI for anyone "upstairs".
- caseymarquis 7y agoIn that kind of manufacturing environment, typically it's just middle management keeping things at a local maximum and hiding problems from plant managers. Middle management is incentivized to maintain said local maximum based on some arbitrary metric (ie uptime) which can be decoupled from productivity. This is the primary mistake. Plant managers usually have the bigger picture in mind, but aren't aware of the issues, as they trust the people below them. Operators eventually stop complaining when nothing gets done, as they assume that's how it works. This leads to money spent fixing operator culture, which is really just a more visible symptom of the actual issue. Long story short, you get what you incentivize for. Incentivize carefully.
- meddlepal 7y agoI used to work for a bank with a large number of OS/2 based ATMs. It's out there, in a lot of places.
- eps 7y agoDiebolds?
- shereadsthenews 7y agoThe system does not “run on” OS/2. That is used to glue the metrocard terminals to an IBM mainframe. The subway “runs on” relay logic. Trains occupy a block because they short the two rails together, which completes the necessary circuit. Only part of the NYC subway is computerized. That part uses off-the-shelf hardware and software that I believe runs at least partly on Solaris.
- endorphone 7y agoThis seems needlessly argumentative and unwilling to allow for any editorial leeway. A subway is composed of many parts that all need to operate for the system to work. But if we want to get pedantic, the subway wouldn't exist without revenue, and that revenue is indirectly managed through an OS/2 system. Ergo, the subway runs on OS/2.
- astrange 7y agoMost subways don't pay for themselves; it's funded by the state. Really there's no reason to charge for usage except that everyone in government likes to steal money from them when nobody's looking.
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoIs it just me or does this article feel kind of shallow? Like there's a lot of fancy text boxes and nice big text, but it doesn't cover a whole lot of information. Like how did the MTA build this infrastructure? Who lead it? What went into their decision making process for OS/2? Were there other options? They briefly discuss how the MTA is moving to contactless payments and casually mention Andy Byford's hiring (incorrectly citing him as the former head of the Tube—unless the MTA hired another former Tube employee?), but they don't delve into that either. It's nice to have a succinct article, but I'd much prefer a long form version. If this article ran in say, the New Yorker, it'd provide a level of depth and information that I'd find really valuable. I assumed from the design of the site, namely the very pretty interludes, that I'd be in for some really good long form journalism. Unfortunately not the case. Edit: Here's a funny snippet from an article about Andy Byford in which the credit card processing for the Metrocard machines goes down. > It seemed that only Miguel knew how to log in to the relevant subprocessor and do the reboot. > “Where is Miguel?” > He was in a car, apparently, on his way home. He wasn’t answering his cell. He lived in Port Jervis. > Byford looked at Meyer and Nugent. They shook their heads. Port Jervis was upstate, three hours away. > “Unbelievable.” > More calls were made, more cages rattled. Was it really possible that hundreds of vital machines, the main revenue engines of the subways, could be repaired by only one person at the M.T.A.? It seemed so. Perhaps an upgrade isn't such a bad idea.
- OBLIQUE_PILLAR 7y agoAndy Byford was manager of several Tube lines Theres a good New Yorker article about him
- _hardwaregeek 7y agoYep, I quoted the article in my edit. He's incorrectly referenced as the "former head of London’s train system" and they claim the reason for his hiring was "ultimately eliminating MetroCards", which is flat out wrong. Byford was brought on to "fix" the inevitable trainwreck that is the MTA while also taking the fall for said trainwreck.
- throw0101a 7y ago
- whiddershins 7y agoI think Citibank did too, for the longest time. I had multiple occasions of visiting their ATMs and being treated to a space invaders style interface ...
- a-dub 7y agoThe MVMs have been on Windows for some time... you can see when they crash. But yeah, it was huge in banking when they released 2.0...
- bayareanative 7y agoWow. The last time I saw OS/2 in production was at Egghead Software's back-office on PS/2's in the very late 1990's.
- dehrmann 7y agoThis got me wondering...if you were building out a system like this today, which OS would you choose that wouldn't seem ridiculous 30 year later? And why aren't we building OSes that are simple and feature-poor with the intention that they'll be used for 30 years? Or the airline problem: it must be annoying that the tech you put in seatbacks has a short shelf life and will look primitive compared to the phones in everyone's pockets.
- ComputerGuru 7y agoThe seatback device is a consumer electronic that can (and should) be experimented with, updated, upgraded, and replaced regularly. I don't care what OS it is using today or how fancy it looks - that has nothing to do with the first part of your question, which should (and fortunately usually is) altogether separate. The off-the-shelf answer today is a variant of QNX or VxWorks. No one gets fired for picking those.
- metildaa 7y agoI thought most seatbacks ran Linux? For more critical applications, Boeing is using Ada on Linux atop AMD's new embedded CPUs, which have no closed firmware (to ensure auditability). Sadly, Boeings culture rot has led to some poor design decisions recently.
- pjmlp 7y agoI am yet to see any Linux distribution certified for high integrity computing. Usually Linux always runs in a VM sandbox on top of such OSes, like Green Hills INTEGRITY OS.
- nickpsecurity 7y agopjmlp is right: life-critical software must be certified to high levels of DO-178C standard. That's always either custom software or some RTOS's that are certified already. Linux couldn't pass DO-178C's high levels, if at all. The INTEGRITY-178B page has the docs and processes listed in bottom right if you want to see them. That's for prior standard, though. New one looks similar. https://www.ghs.com/products/safety_critical/integrity-do-178b.html https://www.ghs.com/products/safety_critical/integrity-do-17... They probably run Linux in the less-critical stuff on the plane. At one point, they were running some apps on Windows and Linux simultaneously as a reliability technique. I don't know if they still do that.
- emersonrsantos 7y agoIf I remember well, Trenitalia POS and many European banks still use OS/2. A lot of mainframes have OS/2 as a frontend to boot (IPL) the big iron. Got heartbroken when OS/2 got sold.
- gattilorenz 7y agoTrenitalia upgraded most of their machines a few years ago, I don't think there are still OS/2 machines around for that. I was amazed the first time I saw one of these crashed, showing the OS/2 Logo (Warp 3 or 4 I think). From the GUI it was impossible to tell, they had relatively high resolution and even, at some point, videos embedded. I wonder who developed and updated the GUI, and using what.
- unixhero 7y agoThat mainframes need a standard computer of some sort to run as a controller to reach IPL boggles my mind.
- dfox 7y agoIt is done in this way on almost any platform that is classified as mainframe. Originally one would IPL such platforms by manually toggling in either some simple code that would somehow DMA the OS bootloader from some external device. This was not exactly user friendly and replacing the front panel blinken lights with some sort of interactive monitor/debugger running on separate smaller CPU was common approach (for example many PDP-10s have PDP-11 in them used as "console processor"). For more recent systems (IBM mainframes, Sun/SGI large machines, etc.) the controller also handles things like power sequencing, hardware configuration (e.g. physical partitioning of interconnect buses, resource allocation...) and mainly also enforces the hardware licensing policies.
- ggg2 7y agoI had never ever seen that neon colored os/2 logo before. why pick such an outline oddity to report on some unknown banality from the past?
- burfog 7y agoLondon's runs on iRMX III. The hardware is x86 but non-PC, based on Multibus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMX_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMX_(operating_system) That OS was pretty much a feature demo OS for the x86. All that task switching stuff is used to the max, and of course the segments are as well. Good luck porting anything, even if you did have the source code and a budget. Also, the popular language was PL/M, which is impressively awful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL/M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL/M
- Lowkeyloki 7y agoI grew up on OS/2 Warp on a PS/1 Consultant. I still have a couple of boxes with original copies of OS/2 Warp and the manuals and optional software disks in my back closet. I guess you could say I have a soft spot for it. It was really ahead of its time compared to its contemporaries, second only to BeOS. But people who weren't techies back in the early 90s didn't see the value in buying a different operating system when their system came with DOS and Windows 3.1. And, honestly, they were probably right! Computers didn't really have the oomph or the networking capabilities at the time to power all the multimedia applications IBM had in mind. So I can't really judge the MTA too harshly because OS/2 is solid and it'll probably gladly do the job for another 30 years so long as the hardware lasts.
- eps 7y agoCanadian flavour of this, from the late 90s was that 1. SkyTrain (driverless monorail) in Vancouver ran under OS/2 2. All street lights in Toronto were managed by a single 486 box running QNX Not sure how true #2 was, but Skytrain had an OS/2 position open for a while, so it was a part of their setup for sure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)
- fouc 7y agoQNX was developed in Waterloo near Toronto so I wouldn't be surprised about #2.
- goodcanadian 7y agoSkyTrain is not a monorail. It is standard (driverless) light rail.
- eps 7y agoQuite possible. It's been 10 years since I last used it.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago1. SkyTrain (driverless monorail) in Vancouver ran under OS/2 Yep. It runs Alcatel/Thales' SelTrac software. Basically the same system that SF's Muni and London's DLR use.
- walterbell 7y agoThe OS/2 ecosystem helped to bring the Windows "start button" back to Windows 8/10. After Microsoft removed the Start button, the former #1 OS/2 ISV (Stardock Systems) created the Start8 utility as a 3rd-party $5 replacement start button. They sold millions of copies, proving market demand and motivating the return of the button in future Windows releases.
- choiway 7y agoThis is a more interesting tidbit about os/2 than the entire article
- walterbell 7y agoOS/2 had an object-oriented GUI (Windows "Cairo" never shipped) and Stardock was a pioneering ISV. They later moved onto Windows games and utilities. Commentary by Stardock CEO, https://www.stardock.com/press/customerreports/stardock2014.pdf https://www.stardock.com/press/customerreports/stardock2014.... > Over the years, we’ve developed and/or published a lot of software that was “ahead of its time”. Sometimes, too far ahead of its time. :) ... Broadly speaking, Stardock is a bunch of “techies” who have let their hobby get out of control ... most consumers would be shocked if they knew the actual dollars earned by reasonably “popular” iOS and Android games and apps ... Our poorest-selling DLC for PC games generates more income than nearly every iOS or Android developer app we've gotten numbers for ... Start8 will undoubtedly be obsoleted by a future version of Windows as its stunning popularity (over 30 million downloads and counting) makes it clear it was a mistake for Microsoft to get rid of the Start menu in Windows 8. In the meantime, Start8 has been an unexpected boon. If it makes Microsoft feel better, the revenue from Start8 has helped us hire a lot of new developers making new Windows software. > ... In 1998, the OS/2 market died off. Stardock went from a multimillion dollar business to one that made less than $400,000 in one year. The only reason we survived was because our former OS/2 user base bought Object Desktop for Windows, sight unseen, a year before it would be released. While “Kickstarter” is now common, most of you reading this know that in 1998 just doing credit cards over the Internet was a new thing, let alone giving $50 to a company to make a product that didn’t exist.
- ceautery 7y agoAs late as 2003 (when I separated from them), Sterling Commerce, a Columbus based EDI network now owned by IBM, used an OS/2 system to convert zModem and FTP traffic to SNA, so that PCs could talk to a mainframe without needing to to buy special modems that could talk bisync. That was the only non-trivial use of OS/2 I've seen, and for all I know it's still running. In the 90s, the CompuServe online service had a dedicated tech support team for people using OS2CIM to connect, and they were pretty evangelical about using OS/2 over Windows or pre-OSX Macs. It's a fun ecosystem, and its users were pretty passionate about it. I'm glad to see it's still being used for something interesting.
- trollied 7y ago"In the future, people will access New York’s subway like they’re queuing for a roller coaster at Disney World. The process will require users to have an internet connected device that gets you through the gates, whether that’s a phone or a smartwatch. If we’re lucky we get a new MetroCard option. But it’s no guarantee." Is that actually true? Seems like a terrible decision, if so. I fundamentally don't understand why the onus would have to be on the user to have internet connectivity. London lets you use contactless payments with normal bank/credit cards, Apple Pay etc.
- cddotdotslash 7y agoThere's been a ton of FUD around this concept since the moment OMNY was announced as the MetroCard replacement. They've committed to supporting phones with NFC, contactless credit and debit cards, as well as a future vended card that can be paid for with cash, likely from any nearby convenience store or machines in the station. Yet despite the hundreds of options that enables, there are still people spreading fear that this change will somehow lock out hundreds of thousands of people from using the subway (the argument being that lower income riders don't have access to the contactless payment methods). I've seen nothing to indicate this will be the case and they've committed to supporting the additional card before retiring the existing MetroCard.
- gerbilly 7y agoThey could have done a lot worse. OS/2 was very stable compared to the NT of the same era. I'm not sure why we laugh at old systems that are still doing their job thirty years later. If anything we should celebrate the resilience and longevity. Would it be immediately better if we replaced it with a bunch of docker containers connecting to mongodb or something? I think we'd be better off as a society if we became tech luddites a bit more. Maybe we could start by replacing all of the facial recognition advertising panels with OS/2.
- _underground 7y agoI'm not sure why we laugh at old systems that are still doing their job Because other countries are hacking our infrastructure, as we hack theirs, and those laughing are doing so nervously, because with an operating system that is decades out of date, it's painfully obvious that anything defended by a password protected user account on that operating system isn't really protected against a determined enemy at all, and any of the permissions and privileges conferred by user accounts on that system are likely a facade protected by an honor system, and mostly physical security. In truth, even if the operating system were newer, we would not want it hooked up to the internet, but if the operating system were up to date, and not well isolated and became exposed to any public gateways, it would stand a fighting chance of not spilling its guts to the world. With such a system disconnected from the internet, one can still bet that a determined attack is going to implant remote connectivity under their own control, and their job is much easier once the implant is connected. They don't need to sweat OS level password rotation, probably won't worry about strong encryption key changes or having to prove identity to policy enforcement tools with signing keys or tokens. Very little in the way of locking the integrity of the system is built into the concept of the OS. The application layer may offer better protection with proprietary controls, but the contents of disk and RAM are very probably possible to dump, inspect, bit twiddle and write back in place to just do anything you want, if your expertise runs deep enough.
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoIs the NYC subway's OS/2 connected to the internet?
- michaelcampbell 7y ago> 5.7M The number of people that rode the New York City subway on an average weekday in 2016. Shouldn't that be: > 5.7M The AVERAGE number of people that rode the New York City subway on a weekday in 2016. You're averaging the number of people, not the weekday. (I guess this is a stylistic linguistic choice, but it's always bothered me.)
- nerdponx 7y agoWhy so? Very likely they took every weekend ridership and averaged them together. If anything, "averaging the day" makes more sense than "averaging the people". The latter would be something like "the average person takes the train every other weekend".
- michaelcampbell 7y agoI never said averaging the people; I said averaging the NUMBER of people, which is what's being done. "Averaging the day" makes no LOGICAL sense; what is being summed? Over what is that sum being divided?
- geofft 7y ago> In the future, people will access New York’s subway like they’re queuing for a roller coaster at Disney World. The process will require users to have an internet connected device that gets you through the gates, whether that’s a phone or a smartwatch. If we’re lucky we get a new MetroCard option. But it’s no guarantee. This is false: - You do not need an "internet connected device." (There isn't even reliable cell service at all turnstiles.) You can use an offline device that's previously had a card added to mobile wallet. You can also just use an actual physical credit card that supports contactless payments. - The MTA has indicated that they're replacing MetroCard with an OMNY-specific contactless payment card, which you can buy using cash if you want. "Although cash isn’t accepted for OMNY right now, cash will always be an option to access MTA services. You still have the option to use MetroCard until OMNY rolls out system-wide." https://new.mta.info/omny https://new.mta.info/omny "In 2020, we will enable mobile ticketing in the OMNY app. In 2021, we will introduce a new MTA-issued contactless transit card for OMNY that you will find at retail locations throughout the New York region. In 2022, we will install OMNY vending machines at subway and commuter rail stations. In 2023, we will say goodbye to MetroCard. You will always be able to pay with cash at retail locations and vending machines." https://omny.info https://omny.info
- patsplat 7y agoIt's a bit unclear. So does OS/2 run on the turnstiles? Also my mom loved OS/2 Mahjong so it had a long life in my house growing up.
- dead-to-me 7y agoThe process will require users to have an internet connected device that gets you through the gates, whether that’s a phone or a smartwatch. I'm not going to bother with NYC ever again, if this happens. This whole idea disgusts me in multiple ways, beyond description.
- southern_cross 7y agoOne thing that the IT world (being a field which is only a few decades old) is going to have to come to grips with is the fact that, in general, infrastructure doesn't necessarily get thrown out just because it has grown a bit long in the tooth. In the US we have physical infrastructure which is many decades to centuries old, and elsewhere in the world there's still infrastructure in active use which dates back to at least Roman times. Now that old stuff certainly may not be ideal by modern standards, of course, but to the extent that it gets replaced this is usually done relatively slowly, and some of it may yet end up sticking around indefinitely.
- wolfi1 7y agoI remember IBM even handed out freebies of OS/2, I was quite a fan of it and its Scripting language REXX. Jokingly we pronounced Os/2 as "O - S - half"
- epynonymous 7y agothere's a saying that if it ain't broken, don't fix it. but the new york city government must be dumping tons of tax dollars maintaining this outdated technology, i'm speaking mostly about the hardware required to run this operating system and software.
- exabrial 7y agoI'm actually surprised it's this advanced. This is the system that still uses glass insulators and cloth wire. The unions keep any technology advancements out to prevent displacing jobs
- anoncake 7y agoThis is not at all surprising. There are still a lot of mechanical signal boxes in operation.