this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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Makes sense, but a vending machine shouldn't need a fully fledged OS in the first place imo
As if Linux based vending machines aint a full fledged OS even with a minimal installation?
This aint embedded.
Yes of course Linux is a fully fledged OS, my point was a vending machine should not need any OS, my bad if I didnt make that clear
Why not? A full windows environment (though not really, because these things run what's called the kiosk mode) can run on cheap SBCs and gives you a ton of hardware and software flexibility, and is also pretty convenient. It's very commonly used for very good reasons.
TIL about windows kiosk mode!
I can understand it from the perspective of the developers who need to implement all this crazy tracking/advertising/graphics functionality, but imo a vending machine should only do three things:
Vending machines have done this for decades without requiring an operating system. Keep it simple!
Simple in what way?
You could make logistics simpler by giving these things networking capacity so you can remotely track their stock and cash levels.
If your software needs to run on multiple different device configurations, you can simplify development and deployment by letting the OS handle a lot of the low level stuff.
In other words, a simpler machine is not necessarily going to be simpler to operate for the company.
Let's stop kidding ourselves, the "good reason" is the cto's yearly Microsoft financed holidays and/or too much legacy code to restart from scratch. But from a purely technical aspect, there's no reason to touch windows