Telcontar
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- Joined
- 19 Jan 2012
- Messages
- 55
I don't think anyone was seriously suggesting that Windows 7 would make a good embedded OS. I'm not in the embedded OS market – the only modern, lightweight OS I'm even halfway familiar with is EPOC32 (which was British!) EPOC32 gave you protected memory, pre-emptive multitasking, task priorities, microkernel modularity including a separate, distinct and swappable UI layer, top-to-bottom object orientated, and it was famously rock solid stable. Memory consumption for all this? 1 MB. Ran pretty well on an 18 MHz ARM CPU, but I'd estimate you'd want 72 MHz at least to be comfy given the high overheads of microkernel architectures.
It was also only single-user, which means that it would not be suitable for a desktop system now, but whether that would concern anyone in the rail industry I don't know – probably not if they're running Windows 95, which was also single-user, and Windows 98 was still a joke operating system. I don't know whether EPOC32 become secure multi-user since it became Symbian, though – I only know that Symbian phones took advantage of the fact that the UI could be replaced wholesale with something else. (The same was true of Linux on the Psion Revo – you'd get the PicoGUI embedded window system instead of X11 as X11 is too larget to into 16 MB RAM.)
It's a sad state of affairs if people's only view of embedded computing is considering it legitimate to place the least-engineered, tackiest and most gruesome consumer operating systems ever made into high speed passenger transport. At least with Mac OS 7–9 you knew that your Mac loved you even if it did crash all the time. To this day, we still live with the legacy of the phenomenal FAIL of all of Microsoft's consumer systems.
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I should also note: EPOC32 was designed (like its predecessor, EPOC16 AKA SIBO) from the ground up by a little British company, Psion PLC, for their range of palmtop computers. The ARM CPU, originally the Acorn RISC Machine, was also designed from the ground up by a little British company, Acorn, for their then-forthcoming 32-bit desktop computer (the Archimedes). You don't always have to settle for second best.
It was also only single-user, which means that it would not be suitable for a desktop system now, but whether that would concern anyone in the rail industry I don't know – probably not if they're running Windows 95, which was also single-user, and Windows 98 was still a joke operating system. I don't know whether EPOC32 become secure multi-user since it became Symbian, though – I only know that Symbian phones took advantage of the fact that the UI could be replaced wholesale with something else. (The same was true of Linux on the Psion Revo – you'd get the PicoGUI embedded window system instead of X11 as X11 is too larget to into 16 MB RAM.)
It's a sad state of affairs if people's only view of embedded computing is considering it legitimate to place the least-engineered, tackiest and most gruesome consumer operating systems ever made into high speed passenger transport. At least with Mac OS 7–9 you knew that your Mac loved you even if it did crash all the time. To this day, we still live with the legacy of the phenomenal FAIL of all of Microsoft's consumer systems.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I should also note: EPOC32 was designed (like its predecessor, EPOC16 AKA SIBO) from the ground up by a little British company, Psion PLC, for their range of palmtop computers. The ARM CPU, originally the Acorn RISC Machine, was also designed from the ground up by a little British company, Acorn, for their then-forthcoming 32-bit desktop computer (the Archimedes). You don't always have to settle for second best.