this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
181 points (97.9% liked)

Technology

34441 readers
243 users here now

This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.


Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.


Rules:

1: All Lemmy rules apply

2: Do not post low effort posts

3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff

4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.

5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)

6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist

7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
all 27 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 64 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Wait, it’s still alive???

[–] SheeEttin@lemmy.world 53 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 19 points 10 months 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 10 months ago

That and os/2 warp. Amazing.

[–] MeshPotato@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months 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 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months 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 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months 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 10 months ago

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

[–] CCatMan@lemmy.one 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] sp00nix@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months 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 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months 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 10 months ago

Voting machines ...

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 36 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 23 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months 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 10 months 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 10 months ago

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

[–] Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago

Glad I could help. :-)

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The number of things Microsoft turned to shit is impressive.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

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

[–] poopsmith@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months 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 10 months 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 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months 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 10 months ago

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