Windows-based cash machines 'easily hacked'

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Not really uni-tasking

An ATM is not a uni-tasking machine. It must handle host communications, device communications and consumer input.

There were two driving forces that moved ATMs to Windows.

1. IBM ending support for OS/2
2. Banks getting tired of having to find / train people in arcane mathods of programming a user interface.

Using Windows allows the UI to be done in HTML so that any graphic artist / web designer can create a UI that doesn't look like it is an old dumb terminal.

True, other OSes could have been used, but at the time the transition began the banks did not trust Linux, OS/X wasn't even an itch in Steveo's pants and embedded OSes did not offer HTML rendering. (Might be a bit off on that one.)

Banks also bagan to see the ATM as just another PC, since they have been essentially running on PC hardware from the late 80's. So, they wanted to be able to use the same infrastructure that they used to manage their fleet of desktops instead of having to use sneakernet. (Not cheap!)

Posted by: Sailing_Nut   Posted on: 04/10/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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