Comments on: Automated kiosks

By: Nigel Jones

Nigel Jones — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:09:10 +0000

I couldn't agree more Ashleigh. I was parenthetically involved with a project a few years ago in which a WINCE platform was running mind numbingly slowly. Eventually a consultant was brought in who managed to track the problem down to some obscure configuration issue.

By: ashleigh

ashleigh — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:56:25 +0000

ATMs USED to be dedicated hardware and very carefully crafted software. I went to a presentation once by a local bank on how they worked – the amount of internal checking is (was) astonishing.Cost pressures have I suspect driven the move to embedded windows (and I've done some of that also!).Building embedded windows machines is touted as "so easy you will have your OS and application running in half a day".When I went through the exercise, to actually build the embedded OS, have it work, do what you want, and REALLY understand whats going on. Tweak and tune it. Turn off things like NTFS file access time updates (else you get flash memory drive wearout)… doing all this, building a stable deployable image, for the OS NOT THE APPLICATION RUNNING ON THE OS. This took 3 months.I wonder how many people spend 3 months making their embedded windows OS?The issues are many and varied and there is no one single reference that you can go to that says "here are good practices". Its a shambles.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 20:54:18 +0000

In the UK we have a lot of Windows-based ATMs. The other day I was amused to see one that was displaying Internet Explorer apparently trying to download an update from some website (fortunately it seemed to have failed). A few moths earlier another one swallowed my bank card before eventually attempting (and failing) a reboot.

By: Nigel Jones

Nigel Jones — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:43:33 +0000

An interesting set of responses. It appears that at least some of the ATMs out there are using Windows. I agree particularly with Kasper that the (lack of) security is absolutely astounding. I also whole heartedly agree that a true embedded RTOS should be used – preferably running on bespoke hardware.What I find stunning about this is that I have worked on Point of Sale equipment that have had to handle debit card transactions. The keypads for debit card readers are impressive pieces of equipment – as mandated by VISA. Despite this VISA apparently allows banks to run ATMs based on Windows. Amazing.

By: Greg

Greg — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:15:48 +0000

I found an error message on an ATM in California a few years ago. The touch screen was obviously not hooked up to the system mouse input, so I couldn't hit OK or Cancel!

By: Kasper

Kasper — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:33:46 +0000

Today it is all too common to see the dreaded blue screen of death of windows NT, 2000 or XP on ATMs.If only the "embedded" systems were programmed using VC++… no such luck! Mostly they use a diabolical combination of Internet Explorer (HTML+JavaScript) for the front end and Visual Basic 6 together with MS Access providing the "back end".These are exactly the kind of systems that should be built using QNX or even Windows CE, using only C/C++ and simple user interface primitives!BTW: these devices require you to insert your credit card or passport. They use a standard Windows OS and they have ethernet networking, but are not patched because they are "embedded". They also have USB ports inside, and will happily execute any .exe on a USB stick. Just think of the possibilities for credit card and identity theft!

By: Kyle Bostian

Kyle Bostian — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:40:57 +0000

I went to look for a reference and could not find it quickly, but I've read somewhere that the leading platform for deployed ATM's is x86 running OS/2 or its successor, ecomstation.