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Comment by todd3834 | Hacker News Reader

Someone once told me that a lot of the big navy ships run on a customized version of Windows XP! Can anyone here confirm?

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I went with some other Microsoft folks on a tour of a ballistic missile sub 15 (?) years ago. The missile control room had a PC running Windows NT 3.51. The person in charge saw the nervous looks we were giving each other and understood our concern immediately. He assured us the PC was just for keeping logs, and the computer behind us, a thing the size of two large refrigerators that based on appearance could have contained vacuum tubes, was in control of the missiles. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

But what did the big computer run?

Not just the US navy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_Command_System#SMC...

Non-mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_Command_System#SMCS-...

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2939435/us-navy-paid-m...

Woah only 9 million , , that is a bargain and certainly a lot cheaper than the alternative. I thought MS would have charged military prices.

Interestingly, in 2011 they were still using MS-DOS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_110129-N-7676W-15...

...and a lot of (physical) stores still use a DOS-based application for their POS systems, judging by the appearance, although they might not actually be running it on DOS but a later version of Windows.

SCO UnixWare / OpenServer was the basis for many POS systems, with curses displays resembling (though not) DOS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenServer

In some of the big department stores the POS is still a dumb terminal. You don't mess with what works.

Windows XP Embedded counts as a RTOS.

It does not. Windows kernel is not real-time.

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