this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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Technology

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[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 64 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Wait, it’s still alive???

[–] SheeEttin@lemmy.world 53 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's been running stuff like ATMs for years. And probably still will.

[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well yeah, that much I know, but i thought it was unsupported. I always saw it as that weird version of windows 98 or XP for really small stuff

[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

That and os/2 warp. Amazing.

[–] MeshPotato@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not sure about ATMs, they often ran OS/2.

Windows CE often ran media centres or UI panels in things like John Deere tractors or the Fiat 500.

It was also the OS that ran the Dreamcasts UI.

[–] JustARegularNerd@aussie.zone 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

From my own experience, I've also seen it on price checkers (Kmart Australia), navigation devices (Navman GPS units) and older Clarion head units.

[–] lmaydev@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It was heavily used on barcode scanning devices. I had my first few programming jobs using them.

I still see some of them around.

Good riddance!!

[–] capital@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Barcode scanners is what popped into my head reading the title.

[–] CCatMan@lemmy.one 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Used by Crestron Electronics for their 3-Series products. Not all are discontinued....

[–] sp00nix@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

This was my immediate though lol. I'm still running some 3 series in my house. CP3 for testing and a PMC3 in my living room.

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

We still use that shit at work on our barcode scanners

Though I'm not sure if it's still technically "Windows ce" or Windows mobile

[–] andruid@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Voting machines ...

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How could even Microsoft release a product named WinCE? I've marveled at it for decades.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

We're talking about the company that once released a utility called the Critical Update Notification Tool (then quickly changed "Tool" to "Utility" when people started laughing). Abbreviations were never their strength.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Update#Critical_Update_Notification_Utility

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

Some of that has to be engineers taking the piss. We are all the same kind of geek-ass bastard, and we love this kind of stupid thing.

IIRC, IBM's PowerPC chips had some of their instructions renamed in 1994. There were some very plausible motives given for changing how mnemonics worked. Mentioning flag names was boilerplate, abbreviating "ex-" words as X was too American, that sort of thing. So officially, there's no particular reason the Enforce In-order Execution of Input / Output command is EIEIO.

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

I had somehow missed that one. Thanks for giving me something else to laugh about.

[–] Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I never noticed that for years. Now I can’t unread that word anymore. Thanks.

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

Glad I could help. :-)

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The number of things Microsoft turned to shit is impressive.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Every big corporation turns everything to shit because being good costs too much.

[–] poopsmith@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I remember in 2013 building software for HMIs running WinCE and back then, it was horribly outdated and a trudge to work on. I can't imagine how bad it would be today.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 3 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Devices like the NEC MobilePro 200, Casio (Cassiopeia) A-10, and HP 300LX started appearing in late 1996 and early 1997, with tiny keyboards, more-landscape-than-landscape displays, and, by modern standards, an impressive number of ports.

By the time Ars Technica started mentioning Windows CE in 2003, it was well on its way to becoming Microsoft's "Sure, we have an OS for that" solution.

It was the embedded "Windows CE for Smart Displays" OS for a ViewSonic airpanel V150p, which let you remotely control a desktop from something that you might, at an angle, call a tablet.

It was modified with "Windows XP extensions" to power a $250 AMD "Personal Internet Communicator" meant for "emerging markets" in 2004.

Still, in mid-2005, Windows CE was installed in nearly half the PDAs sold, with most of its share having been clawed out of Palm's clutches.

Later that year, Palm announced that its newest device, the Treo 650, was running Windows Mobile.


The original article contains 380 words, the summary contains 157 words. Saved 59%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] ShitOnABrick@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Windows ce looks like an interesting operating system being ran on almost anything I'm pretty sure they ran this on some cad infotainment systems

[–] CCatMan@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago

You need Visual Studio 2008 to development for it, which was also made impossible to get thanks to MS. 😭