Close Menu
    Interesting

    My train is running Windows 98

    Share.
    View 48 Comments

    48 Comments

    1. kipperhare on

      It’s most likely an embedded version of Windows or a newer version with the classic theme

    2. Defiant_Youth_8912 on

      If there’s no reason to add Spyware the  there is no reason to upgrade 

    3. jazzy663 on

      Probably installed as part of the train when it was manufactured. I have a soft spot for systems that don’t need Internet to work. Reminds me of that Commodore 64 that was used in an auto repair shop up into the 2000s.

      Just never connect it to the Internet and take care of the hardware, and it will continue to work.

    8. Rot-Orkan on

      Nothing wrong with that. If it’s secure (not connected to the internet) and does the job, that’s what matters.

      And on a side note, look how nice that UI is–everything is clean, you can easily tell at a glance what’s interactable, and it has good information density. All while being able to run on a system that probably has 100x *less memory* than your smart watch does.

    9. Hungover-Owl on

      Some of the trains I drive have systems older than windows 98 as the operating system. Our systems are so old I figure it’s a great security feature. You’d have to bring people out of retirement to tamper with them.

    10. tun3man on

      Are you sure? Because windows 7 has this visuals if you enable classic desktop theme.

    11. insertAlias on

      It could be Windows 2000 (the last of the NT line before that merged with the consumer line). And that’s just judging by the window’s toolbar; the rest of that is just Windows Forms, I could make an application that looked like that on Windows 11 in a few minutes. WinForms hasn’t really changed look-and-feel in a long long time.

      Either way, assuming it’s not accessible to the internet, then it’s not really dangerous. The idea is that in certain areas, tested and proven is better than theoretical upgrades that don’t have other obvious returns.

    13. HubrisOfApollo on

      If it works why change it? Years ago I worked as IT at a construction company with an asphalt hotmix plant. They were using an old 286 running a dos based program to control the whole plant. The computer was already like 15 years old when I got there and eventually failed. They were terribly worried about not being able to replace it but my experience with emulation (and playing old DOS game) allowed me to virtualize the whole machine and save the day.

    14. All-the-pizza on

      Side note: I hear a lot of schools are replacing Window laptops with Mac NEOs. Windows, Microsoft, are sucking bad lately.

    16. HiDDENKiLLZ on

      On the contrary, it could be a more modern version of windows with this particular application running in compatablity mode

    20. Yaasu on

      UK nuclear submarine uses a specific version of Windows xp. As they work enclosed anyway, it’s a non issue

    22. Magrue5185 on

      Wait until you hear what a sizeable portion of the global economy and banking systems run on…..

    24. desperaterobots on

      I used to work for a statewide insurance place running on systems from the 70s.

    25. Survive1014 on

      Most of the retail world still runs on mainframe programming. Its crazy.

    27. MrSaphique on

      95, that’s old. But it’s more common than you’d think mostly because it’s stable AF but also because most systems can’t be update. Let’s hope it’s at least properly locked down.

    29. stanley_leverlock on

      If you knew what some “end of the world as we know it” weapon systems were running you’d freak out.

    31. sonofsophia333 on

      Windows 98 running a train makes me think of something totally different.

    33. MangoJerry81 on

      Never touch a running system. 😉

      Perspective: A current version of Windows would certainly have been broken by Microsoft’s with multiple rotten updates.

    34. cmb1213 on

      That’s probably the version of windows from when the train was originally designed.

      Bonus is that older systems like that are generally less prone to cyber attacks because they are older than the hackers themselves.

    38. joe411 on

      It’s probably newer than that and is just the classic theme. My guess is it’s Windows 7 as that’s when those SEPTA trains were manufactured.

    41. shirk-work on

      In Linux there’s fstab.h which has a header file that was written in 1980 so is like 46 years old and is on probably billions of computers. I don’t doubt the banking system has some Fortran code that’s like 60+ years old still in operation or some military equipment with code older than that.

      Google says the oldest code still in use is the US Department of Defense’s MOCAS (Mechanization of Contract Administration Services). It was deployed in 1958 to track military contracts and is still actively processing billions of dollars in obligations today. So that’s 68 year old code getting the job done.

      Its funny how old code can go from being a vulnerability to a new form of security through obscurity.

    42. ScaleOperator on

      honestly this doesn’t even surprise me anymore. I once took a commuter rail where the ticketing kiosk was running XP and had the classic “your system has performed an illegal operation” error just frozen on half the screen. The other half still let you buy tickets somehow. Public transit infrastructure just refuses to die.

    46. DavidWilliams_121 on

      honestly this tracks so hard. I once worked at a place where we were running Windows XP on the cash registers until like 2019 and every single day was a gamble on whether the thing would blue screen mid-transaction. customers loved it.

    Leave A Reply