Royal Navy to Run on Windows

[Roger1]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/06/ams_goes_windows_for_warships/

You Brits are sunk

 

[CubaTBird]

as david bisbal says "Llorare las penas!!!!"

 

[Roger1]

as david bisbal says "Llorare las penas!!!!"

?

 

[mvc]

The British are Insane!

A windows-based combat management system for nuclear capable vessels?

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "blue screen of death"

Why don't they get themselves a windows-based air traffic control system for Heathrow as well. And another for the Nuclear power plants!

No commercial OS has a high enough mean time to failure or systems redundancy for these mission critical installations.

Insane.

 

[Apple Hobo]

Winblows NT caused a USN ship to take a giant crap while in operation. Linky-link

Anyone with elementary knowledge of computer science can see that Microsoft Windows, as described here by Gates, is inherently insecure by design.

From another article:

Because of politics, some things are being forced on us that without political pressure we might not do, like Windows NT... If it were up to me I probably would not have used Windows NT in this particular application. If we used Unix, we would have a system that has less of a tendency to go down.

 

[Counterfit]

HAHA! And meanwhile, our defense contractors (okay, one of them) are buying xServes with YellowDog on them

 

[Darwin]

Windows running our Defence?

I feel safer already

 

[fingers]

A windows-based combat management system for nuclear capable vessels?

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "blue screen of death"

Why don't they get themselves a windows-based air traffic control system for Heathrow as well. And another for the Nuclear power plants!

No commercial OS has a high enough mean time to failure or systems redundancy for these mission critical installations.

Insane.

I agree totally. I went to the Imperial War Museum in London on Saturday. In their Royal Navy submarine exhibit/simulator. I saw the very same blue screen of death - I couldn't resist taking a picture of it.

It was upside down as well which amused me more. But reading the piece in the register really sent a shiver down my spine. Remember it's the British Navy - OK we Brits may be sunk - but they are carrying thermo nuclear INTERCONTINENTAL nuclear weapons. NO ONE IS SAFE - not even Mr Bill Gates!

With regards to Heathrow Airtraffic control - they use a 30 year old unix system...

PEACE

 

[JFreak]

Why don't they get themselves a windows-based air traffic control system for Heathrow as well.

i travelled through heathrow few weeks ago and noticed that they already have got windows-based public phones. none of them working, all of them showing nice "exception this and that" warnings

 

[JLS]

And the cash machine in the bank wasn't working yesturday.. it was running windows xp pro none the less...

 

[virividox]

too bad it wasnt giving away money

honestly why would gov run military systems on a commercial OS that is so buggy; you would think they would hire someone to tweak a stable os for their ops

 

[KingSleaze]

Winblows NT caused a USN ship to take a giant crap while in operation. Linky-link



From another article:

You beat me to the punch with the link and some of the story. The idea for the SMART ships was to use 'off-the-shelf' computer technology vice specialized systems, thereby reducing the cost of the computer system. Oh the folly of it all. Yes, winblows PC's ARE less expensive than Macs. They are also more prone to failure, need more system support and need to be upgraded more often, leading to higher end costs of the life of the warship. Very short sighted.
But it's built by the lowest bidder............

 

[JLS]

too bad it wasnt giving away money

LOL that would have been good. No.. it just kept rebooting iteself and then saying there was an error each time. I watched it do this about 4 times while I was in the queue.

 

[AmigoMac]

LOL that would have been good. No.. it just kept rebooting iteself and then saying there was an error each time. I watched it do this about 4 times while I was in the queue.

I could be wrong, but a lot, if not 100'% of the ticket automatic of the railway stations in germany at least in NRW run on windows... I have seen some trying to start w95 without success... the problem is that the "train guards" do not believe that the machine wasn't working -if you're already in the train-... ...

 

[srobert]

WTF do you mean skipper by "Tube 1 through 6 have fired" ?!?!"

I swear captain Mironov! The missiles fired accidently! ... ... what do you mean retaliate?

 

[volfreak]

EULA

Hmmm, I wonder if the EULA removes all responsibility/liability from MS. "We're sorry, the missile blew up London but the EULA specifically states that we are not liable for any damage."

 

[spinner]

There goes the nieghborhood.

How long before we are reading a news article about a vessel whose weapons systems went offline at that critical moment.

 

[Apple Hobo]

^^^BSOD sub picture

 

[JLS]

That pic is great

 

[crazzyeddie]

Hmmm, I wonder if the EULA removes all responsibility/liability from MS. "We're sorry, the missile blew up London but the EULA specifically states that we are not liable for any damage."

Even M$ couldn't fight the US or British government. They would be so screwed over within 48 hours that they would never be able to sell their products in either country ever again.

 

[Les Kern]

Remember the big power outage last year? Rumor has it that Bill Gates gave the government $1 BN to shut the hell up.

 

[MacFan26]

couldn't resist thinking of Jack Sparrow saying "Pride of the King's navy you are!" Anyway...that sub picture is great

 

[garybUK]

hmmm doesn't nasa use NT4 ??? Windows is a very stable OS when deployed correctly and on stable hardware, We have Win2000 machines that run critical databases with several 10's of thousands of users that have uptimes of 2yrs plus! that is of course running on proper robust hardware.

 

[solvs]

hmmm doesn't nasa use NT4 ??? Windows is a very stable OS when deployed correctly and on stable hardware, We have Win2000 machines that run critical databases with several 10's of thousands of users that have uptimes of 2yrs plus! that is of course running on proper robust hardware.

That may be, there are a lot of places that use a scaled down version of Windows for one task and it usually works ok. Especially with good maintenence. But even then, it doesn't always work. I've seen ATMs and automated machines getting Blue Screens. If it was bad RAM or something, you'd think it would have caught it earlier. And if it was something else, it's odd that it happens to often. Look at the links above for when the US Navy had a catastrophic failure due to Windows on a very expensive system. When it crashes, it comes crashing down hard.

Either you are very good, or are very lucky.

 

[cb911]

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "blue screen of death"

ha ha, you're right, it does.

and no matter which version of Windows they' use, it's not going to be very good... lets consider their options:

- Windows Many Errors
- Windows Neanderthal Technologies
or the Windows XPerience, whatever that is.

LOL. did i miss any?

edit>> had to fix the bbcode tags. it's too much tag-ness!!