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August 3, 2004 12:01 AM

Broken: ATM running Windows

atm_bluescreenJohn Haller writes in from right here in New York:

Attached is one of the many reasons that Windows and ATM machines make a bad combination...

Comments:

I've seen similar photos before, but the real kicker for me was seeing one live - at one of my local ATMs, it had an error up on the screen. What's more, I know error messages well enough to know that the one I saw meant that the ATM program was made in Visual Basic. Seriously.

I normally take my camera everywhere, but I hadn't got it on this occasion, which really bummed me out. Ah well, maybe next time.

Posted by: Ciaran at August 3, 2004 05:34 AM

Diebold ATM Crashes, Dispenses Tunes - Not Money.

These guys make voting machines too...gulp.

Posted by: George at August 3, 2004 05:45 AM

oops should link to

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=62

Posted by: George at August 3, 2004 05:46 AM

Everyone bangs on this, but seriously: what do you think any other OS would do if it couldn't access the hard drive/network drive? Or some piece of connected hardware fails?

Posted by: Mike Dimmick at August 3, 2004 05:54 AM

My brother had an ATM crash on him once, only to reveal it was running on OS/2 Warp...

Posted by: Alden Bates at August 3, 2004 06:51 AM

Um, I see no reason why it shouldnt be written in Visual Basic :-p

Posted by: Richard@Home at August 3, 2004 07:06 AM

Maybe because Visual Basic encourages sloppy programming practices? Sort of like how you can write good Perl without use strict, but the chances are much lower.

Posted by: George Hotelling at August 3, 2004 09:12 AM

"What do you think any other OS would do if it couldn't access the hard drive/network drive?"

The first question is whether a general purpose O/S should be used to drive an ATM. The O/S should write the error to the system console device. That is not necessarily the same as the screen presented to the end user.

Posted by: Carlos Gomez at August 3, 2004 10:16 AM

It's that "Data or files may be lost" line that's particularly scary.

Posted by: Rob at August 3, 2004 11:07 AM

Why do you think it's Windows? Looks kind of like DOS to me.

Posted by: MilesArcher at August 3, 2004 11:28 AM

it's called a blue screen of death

Posted by: lane at August 3, 2004 12:08 PM

DOS isn't quite blue, last time I checked

Posted by: lane at August 3, 2004 12:09 PM

My theory? A worn-out flash disk.

CompactFlash disks, for example, can operate just like an IDE hard drive. You just get an adapter to make the pinout work. Now, you can install Windows or whatever you want on it, and it'll work for a while, but non-embedded and customized Windows installations write to the disk a lot. Flash disks wear out if you write to them a lot. Therefore, after a while in the field, the flash will fail, error messages will occur, and data will be lost.

What I see is a common problem and a source of more than a few pictures here on This Is Broken -- companies used to writing software for desktops and servers trying to write software for the embedded space.

Posted by: Alex at August 3, 2004 12:29 PM

Somewhat related: My local cable system used to run its TV Guide Channel on an Amiga. It was a dead giveaway when there was a Guru Meditation error flashing away on that channel instead of program listings. ;-)

Posted by: codeman38 at August 3, 2004 01:11 PM

_@_v - eee! stupid die-bold a.t.m. across the street from me has been down for several days now...

Posted by: she-snailie_@_v at August 4, 2004 09:06 PM

>>>DOS isn't quite blue, last time I checked

You've never had windows crash on you? DOS isn't blue, but the 'Blue Screen of Death' is.

Micro$oft strikes again.

Posted by: AnyKey at August 7, 2004 02:29 PM

>>You've never had windows crash on you? DOS isn't blue, but the 'Blue Screen of Death' is.>The first question is whether a general purpose O/S should be used to drive an ATM.

So true.

Posted by: Shadow at August 8, 2004 01:40 PM

| O_o

|

| Regarding my last post, something is wrong

| with the line breaks.

| That should read:

"You've never had windows crash on you?"

DOS isn't blue, but the 'Blue Screen of Death' is.

"The first question is whether a general purpose O/S should be used to drive an ATM."

So true.

Posted by: Shadow at August 8, 2004 01:41 PM

Yes, Anykey, I have had windows crash on me before, and it is not very fun to redo everything

Posted by: lane at August 9, 2004 01:50 PM

DOS isn't blue, but the 'Blue Screen of Death' is.

That's kind of a truism don't you think, that the blue screen of death is indeed blue? You're not really supporting your argument that Windows has a blue error screen. Do you mean to say that the error screen for Windows is blue? :-P

Posted by: Bill at August 11, 2004 02:53 AM

Don't mean to be pedantic, but that screenshot is not of a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). The fact that you can press any key to continue shows it is not 'dead'.

Posted by: Matthew at August 15, 2004 10:24 PM

Well, the so-called Blue Screen of "Death" doesn't actually mean death in every case. It's an indicator of a huge error, but with some blue-screen errors (more than one error will cause that), it's possible to return to the GUI and keep going. With others, like the one in that photo, pressing a key will force a reboot (if it responds at all).

Posted by: Felix J. Lockhart at August 17, 2004 09:47 PM

this reminds me of a metrocard machine i was once waiting online for. someone started buying a metrocard, put in their twenty, and then it said that that machine was out of service, then after the persan banged on the machine and hit all the buttons it said restarting windows NT mta edition, but then it would hang in the restart, and restart again, restarting four times before i stopped staring at it

Posted by: Mark at August 19, 2004 09:15 PM

Hey, wait, doesn't the BSOD (shudder) usually display a fatal error/exception/fault in address FDFJ4632FSAHASHDAJ3? (that was a made up ID, but it makes about as much sense as what is displayed normally) and anyway, usually it has a second option to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart Windows. Obviously this is an embedded version and its probably different, but it seems wrong. I have a laptop with Microscotch Window$ on it, and the friggin screen always looks the same. ALWAYS. And I would know what it looks like, trust me. This one just looks wrong.

And about the DOS thing, it's usually a black BG and white text.

And Matthew, you are quite right. The stupid 'Press any key to continue' makes no sense. But it IS made by Microscotch. What else can be expected?

Posted by: WatchOutForBananas at August 22, 2004 11:53 AM

Hey, wait, doesn't the BSOD (shudder) usually display a fatal error/exception/fault in address FDFJ4632FSAHASHDAJ3? (that was a made up ID, but it makes about as much sense as what is displayed normally) and anyway, usually it has a second option to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart Windows. Obviously this is an embedded version and its probably different, but it seems wrong. I have a laptop with Microscotch Window$ on it, and the friggin screen always looks the same. ALWAYS. And I would know what it looks like, trust me. This one just looks wrong.

And about the DOS thing, it's usually a black BG and white text.

And Matthew, you are quite right. The stupid 'Press any key to continue' makes no sense. But it IS made by Microscotch. What else can be expected?

Posted by: WatchOutForBananas at August 22, 2004 11:54 AM

Sorry about the double post, I told you my thing is screwed up.

Posted by: WatchOutForBananas at August 22, 2004 11:55 AM

How would I expect an O/S to react? Just like that! However, this is an O/S that is dedicated to ONE thing- being an ATM! If it were designed properly, the %^&*~!! thing would say "Out of order" and leave the user out of it. If I go to the store and a lane is closed, I do not need to know that the cashier has a raging case of herpies. I just need to know the lane is closed. So, yeah, this is broken.... I don't need to know that there was a fatal error (as if pressing a key will help!). All I, as the end user, need to know, is that the machine is not working. Definitely broken!! Software is called SOFTware for a reason... it can be changed... make it fit the application!!

Posted by: Duh at August 29, 2004 04:13 AM

Regarding the BSOD discussions:

There are several different BSODs. The ones being described above with the hexadecimal number appear when an application causes some problem in the underlying OS. The style hear appears in the case of a hardware issues. You could get a similar one if you popped a floppy out while you were saving data to it.

In case anyone cares, the BSOD here is from one of the Windows 9x (95, 98, Me) series.

Posted by: whigidy_wacked at September 12, 2004 10:45 AM

Well, the "Disk Write Error" BSOD tends to mean the hard disk has developed bad sectors on which vital system files were stored. It's utterly irrelevant to the quality or lack thereof of the OS.

Posted by: Ed at September 19, 2004 08:26 AM

The fact that it says "data or files may be lost" has gotta suck for everybody who "made any transactions." They probably don't even know that what they did made no difference in the banking system at all.

Nextran's slogan (it's in the bottom-left of the picture) is "buisness without limits." How ironic, that this ATM is buisness, but is also limited.

Posted by: does it really matter? at November 24, 2004 07:59 PM

In my previous post, I should have put "what they did probably made no difference" instead of just "what they did made no difference," oops!

Posted by: does it really matter? at November 24, 2004 08:02 PM

The MetroCard post reminds me: Windows NT isn't dubbed Nice Try for nothing!!! I should know... i'm using Windows XP (NT 6) to type this. I have crashes--even though XP is supposed to be stable. So much much for stable!!!

Posted by: Michael at January 7, 2005 10:54 PM

I just love it when windows xp crashes, reboots, then pops up a dialog box say that it has "recovered from a serious error" - I hardly call rebooting and losing everything that has not been saved 'recovering'

Posted by: Bgunn at January 11, 2005 04:07 PM

ATMs run on all sorts of OS, the previous most popular being OS/2 Warp. Now, sadly, many are migrating to Windows. As for the "data lost", not to worry - the transaction data approval/denial and database entry of user getting or depositing cash is at a central switch and banking system, not determined by the ATM itself.

Posted by: ATM_Nerd at January 11, 2005 04:19 PM

I have had read write error happen to me beforw. working an old computer with a 1.2 GIG seagate harddrive with Win 98 when the desptop started loading the BSOD poped up.

Posted by: INTEL HATER at March 3, 2005 06:14 PM

If you don't use windows, then you must be using linux and therefore you must be a hacker

Posted by: buzz off at March 15, 2005 02:17 PM

>

WinXP is about as stable as a bowl of jello in a paint shaker.

Posted by: cheeseman at May 27, 2005 06:53 PM

It sure must be quite scary standing there with your card in the machine waiting for money and suddenly the bluescreen appears. It could be stuck in a loop, taking money from your account.

Posted by: Frederic Larsen at September 7, 2005 04:12 PM

very useful site

Posted by: Alladin at September 20, 2005 01:41 PM

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