5 ms·
They need a full stack OS with TCP/IP, crypto, UI, etc... Plus with Windows they can reuse a lot of their libs which are written in C# or Java.
by ianhawes 13y ago
They need a full stack OS with TCP/IP, crypto, UI, etc... Plus with Windows they can reuse a lot of their libs which are written in C# or Java.
- anonymfus 13y agoBut why they use outdated consumer oriented versions of Windows? Why they all are XP Home Edition?
- jboggan 13y agoBecause it was probably cheaper that way. The manufacturers are passing the security buck to the banks themselves, and folks who work in banking IT/infrastructure don't generally know enough to understand what these machines do. As long as the cash counts in the cassettes matches up with the receipt at the end of the week no one is worried.
- cbhl 13y agoBesides, insurance!
- kalmi10 13y agoWhy home? Because home editions are cheaper, and they really don't need any extra features of the more pro editions. So in one word: cost
- drdaeman 13y agoI thought Windows-based ATM mostly use XP Embedded, not Home Edition.
- anonymfus 13y agoMay be it is a selection bias, but as unlucky customer I had seen hundreds failed ATMs from various banks on streets and almost all were with XP Home, exceptions were XP Professional, Linux, Windows 98 SE, OS/2 and DOS. I am from Russia, so corruption may be explanation.
- viraptor 13y agoThere are full TCP/IP and crypto stacks for pretty much any chip that can support enough IO ports to communicate with a network card. UI is not that difficult to implement if the only thing you need to display is a full screen background with one row of changing text. Even if you want to play movies, this can be offloaded to a GPU and done almost entirely in hardware. Look at it the other way - the only functional difference between a payment terminal and an ATM is the cash dispenser. Payment terminals implement modems, networking, bluetooth, crypto (actually that's done in hardware anyway, you just talk to a chip), UI on an almost completely custom system - it's being done right now.
- techdragon 13y agoC# and Java developers are cheap. So fuck security we'll throw more dev sat it. Signed NCR, Diebold, et al.
- mschuster91 13y agoYet, devs for embedded systems are harder to come by than devs for Windows. Makes initial costs as well as maintenance costs lower.