Last night after an exciting State High Hockey game (we won 4-3), I stopped at an ATM machine to get some cash. Right after my receipt came out the ATM machine "rebooted." It did the typical BIOS memory check at which point I started paying attention. Everything looked like a normal Windows PC boot -- it uses an Intel Pentium III 1.0 GHz chip -- until an OS/2 Warp "splash" screen came up! It was running a version of OS/2 dated late 2002 as near as I could see. I did a little research (OK -- I went to Wikipedia), and saw that many of the NCR and Diebold ATM machines until very recently ran OS/2. IBM only dropped support at the end of 2007 and suggested that ATM manufacturers use something else (like Java and Linux). From what I can see, the replacement is more like a version of Windows XP.
When I did a little more research (OK -- I followed one or two of the links from the Wikipedia article), it seems like OS/2 has a cult like following. OS/2 was originally developed for the PS/2 jointly by Microsoft and IBM, but with the advent of Windows 3.0, Microsoft pulled out of the alliance. The OS/2 "cult" is trying to get IBM to open source OS/2. IBM is telling them the same thing that they told us when we tried to get them to open source DCE and DFS: there is too much third-party code in OS/2 and we don't have the resources to clear the intellectual property issues. Too bad. Yet another reason that software patents should have a much shorter time period before they become public domain.
Note to bank branch officials: If you see a guy on the security cameras in a van who looks like he's watching your screen for 10 minutes or so, he's harmless. He was just doing the Time Warp again.
When I did a little more research (OK -- I followed one or two of the links from the Wikipedia article), it seems like OS/2 has a cult like following. OS/2 was originally developed for the PS/2 jointly by Microsoft and IBM, but with the advent of Windows 3.0, Microsoft pulled out of the alliance. The OS/2 "cult" is trying to get IBM to open source OS/2. IBM is telling them the same thing that they told us when we tried to get them to open source DCE and DFS: there is too much third-party code in OS/2 and we don't have the resources to clear the intellectual property issues. Too bad. Yet another reason that software patents should have a much shorter time period before they become public domain.
Note to bank branch officials: If you see a guy on the security cameras in a van who looks like he's watching your screen for 10 minutes or so, he's harmless. He was just doing the Time Warp again.
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