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The articles makes vague complains and leaves many questions unanswered. First, I don't get the primary complaint in the article. The MTA chose OS/2 in the ear
by haltingproblem 4y ago
The articles makes vague complains and leaves many questions unanswered.
First, I don't get the primary complaint in the article. The MTA chose OS/2 in the early 1990s, when there no other choices and it has served the MTA for almost 30 years with minimal hassles of upgrades or outages. I can't recall a single day when the Metrocard was not working - sure there are problems but it is more a UI/UX issue - a app that shows you Metrocard usage and balance would be insanely useful but we lack small mercies but hey you can pay with your smartwatch /s.
A piece of technology that is stable for 30 years is remarkable. Even if they had gone with Linux/NT the upgrade cycles themselves would have wreaked havoc. OS/2 seems like a brilliant choice in that regard.
Questions left unaddressed:
- What tech did they move to now with contactless payments?
- The move to contactless payments is awesome but what happens to people who lack smartphones or do not have credit cards or <big-tech>-pay setup on their phones. Or just casual tourists visiting from overseas with no US cards. How do they pay? Do they keep supporting metrocards forever? Does that mean to support Metrocards they need OS/2 and assorted new systems.
- What is the mainframe part of the stack and what function does it do.
- cnorthwood 4y agoI was recently in New York as a Brit and was really happy to see the OMNY system which just allowed me to use contactless to traverse the turnstiles (for everything but the JFK SkyTrain) with no issues, similar to how metro transport works in the UK for example. I don't think there's a requirement for it to be a US card, but instead any contactless card will work?
- wikibob 4y agoAs it turns out: “The OMNY system is designed by Cubic Transportation Systems, using technology licensed from Transport for London's Oyster card.” https://www.cubic.com/news-events/news/cubic-wins-contract-new-york-mta-replace-iconic-metrocard-system-world-class-new https://www.cubic.com/news-events/news/cubic-wins-contract-n...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- em-bee 4y agoNT maybe, but linux not so much. that linux machine would still be running. and don't argue security patches, because OS/2 is not getting those either.
- haltingproblem 4y agoThe system went live in 1993 so what distro would they have chosen in ~1990, when the system choice was made and is that distro still around? How many ports would they have had to make over the ensuing years. I love Linux and use it everyday but it would have been a poor choice in 1990 and some would argue would still be a poor choice today given other industrial OS-es on the market.
- marcus0x62 4y agoSeeing as Linux didn’t exist in 1990, it would have been an exceptionally poor choice. Early distros were pretty rough, but honestly by 93/94 it was reasonably useful and, if you didn’t have defective hardware, which was a huge problem at the time, quite stable.
- iggldiggl 4y ago> The move to contactless payments is awesome but what happens to people who lack smartphones or do not have credit cards or <big-tech>-pay setup on their phones. https://omny.info/omny-card https://omny.info/omny-card