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Comment by xp84 | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to also see an article examining these computing power attributes on the piece of garbage embedded computer on the front of the gas pumps where the lag between registering every keypress is like 800ms, and every screen redraw takes about 2000ms. It takes me an extra 60 seconds to get gas now thanks to how slow these things are, and it is nearly universal despite whether they appear to be 20 year old or new devices.

> Car Wash Y/N? (wait) > Loyalty (wait) > Fuel Rewards (wait) > Alt ID (wait) > 0005550000 (wait for the numbers to appear on screen.

I bet they run Java.

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It's exceptionally slow on some days and quite variable. That makes me think it's "phoning home" using the GPRS gateway for every keypress, almost as if the menu items need to be generated dynamically.

I think about this every time I used one of these machines... isn't it in the businesses best interest to get people through as fast as possible? I have the same experience at grocery stores and convenience stores, I'm always amazed at how slow the machines are with such seemingly simple tasks.

The machines on brand new gas stations and self-checkouts are much faster [also support mobile payment], but performing upgrades to older systems usually isn't worth the cost since they're only at max. throughput for a few hours every week, if that.

The new ones play video ads and (some at least) have audio that you can't disable too (spotted in New Mexico). Truly baffling!

Hopefully not all of the machines are that bad. I wish that common point-of-sale interfaces focused on simplicity and ease of use (especially accessibility). Maybe one day!

Some of the unmarked buttons on those machines will mute the ads. Depends on the model.

I find its the opposite, in the US they weren't this slow when they were rolling out 20 years ago. Probably 10-15 years ago they started to get a lot slower, they went from basically instant to increasingly laggy. Gas stations have been rolling out chip aware ones for the past couple years and overwhelmingly they seem fairly laggy. It seems like there are a couple brands that are faster, and the rest are timeslicing 10k pumps inputs on a mainframe in new jersy (ok that's a joke but wouldn't surprise me if they are javascript based and round-tripping over dial-up to a linux machine fronting a AS400 or something).

Saving a few seconds is only the immediately measurable effect of such an investment, but as you can see in this post it seems the added friction is a major headache for people, and removing it may have long term customer loyalty effects.

This reminds me of back in the 90’s when the store I worked at replaced an old electronic cash register with one run by a computer.

It was so slow and I had no idea why. The display was a standard text screen of 40 x 80. The math is dead simple and the only other thing it did was open the cash drawer. The computer was a 486-40MHz so better than the one I had a home that ran Ultimate 7 just fine.

You forgot: Would you like a receipt? (wait)

It makes no sense at all. As soon as you input payment it should output gas. There's really no need for buttons or a screen at all (well, maybe except for entering a zip). If they really have to show all that stuff, it can come after I have my gas.

Note: languages aren't slow, it's the programs that are slow.

As a non-US citizen: What's the deal with entering ZIP codes in some gas stations in the US? Tax reasons?

From what I understand it is for fraud protection. If you steal a credit card you likely do not know what the billing zip code is.

According to this blog[0] they also collect the data for "marketing purposes".

[0]:https://blogs.creditcards.com/2014/05/zip-codes-gas-station-...

It's also extremely annoying when driving in the states as a Canadian, since our postal codes don't follow the same format. Canadian postal codes are six character alphanumeric strings with alternating letters and numbers, so you can't enter them on the keypad.

The trick, which isn't obvious, is that you're supposed to drop the letters from your postal code, leaving three digits, and then append two zeros to the end. For example: K9Z 2P7 -> 92700.

In Canada we don't have to deal with this, since pretty much all our pumps have supported EMV chip cards for years.

I remeber a foreigner asking me what should he enter for zip code, when fueling, I did not know the answer, but I'm wondering how did he solve it.

On that note, I just used a pump with EMV for the first time, (US, in Delaware) which didn't ask for zip. I guess they're just starting to get deployed.

I think it's just fraud protection, but data farming makes sense too... It's only required some times at some stations it seems. At the station that I frequent I don't have to enter a ZIP, but other stations owned by the same company just miles away require one.

I’ve heard it’s a substitute solution for billing address textbox for that interface

Fraud protection

I'm a bit surprised to see the comments here on automated gas station pumps. I've used quite a few different ones in a few different countries of Europe (where I go outside Europe, usually the stations are not automated so I can't compare) and I have never had this kind of slow experience.

Here in Belgium I don't even get asked if I want a receipt, I can just ask it afterwards if I like (just like for the rewards card). The worst I've had were in store French supermarket stations where for a while they had audio ads playing while you were filling up, that was absolutely horrible and I stopped going there. Eventually those things went away.

But the interface itself always asks for the least possible things. Diesel/gasoline 95/gasoline 98 then the card PIN, and you can fill up.

> But the interface itself always asks for the least possible things. Diesel/gasoline 95/gasoline 98 then the card PIN, and you can fill up.

In Finland, they don't even ask what you're going to pump. You just grab the right nozzle and go.

In the US there are separate buttons to select the grade of gasoline (I always push them to see if I can just bypass all the nonsense, but alas it doesn't work that way). The screens are an add-on gatekeeper that disables the grade selection until all its questions have been answered (NO, NO, NO, NO).

My process has been pick up the handle, hit the grade button, attempt to start pumping since the pay at the pump machines started to roll out a couple decades ago.

This used to work for probably better than half of them due to the fact that they had pay after pumping policies for the cash customers. Hardly ever works anymore, but I keep doing it and sometimes am surprised, while on a road-trip out in the country, when it works. OTOH, I also tend to stop at old crotchety gas stations on principal and have been known to make a U turn if a station has pumps that look like they are older than a couple decades. A few years ago, I stopped at one where there was a $3 taped over one of the digits. I asked the owner about it, apparently his pumps could only charge .01-$1.50 (or some range like that) so every-time gas prices went over or under some threshold he had to physically flip some mechanical gear in the pump and get the state to come back out and recertify the pump. This of course apparently cost more than the poor guy was making in gas, so he was saying that likely the next time it happened he would simply shutdown.

I'm surprised to see that you (and obviously lots of other people) were able to affect a reduction in advertising by boycotting ad-playing stations.

I wonder if it would work here... I live in Minnesota and I'm pretty limited on where I can fill up with 98 RON (called 93 Pump here in the US for some reason...). A lot of stations play video ads with sounds while you stand there.

Well, for a long time the population as a whole in the US managed to kill pay first gas stations. Pretty much everyone just kept driving when they saw the "pay first" signs and the pumps refused to just pump gas. The inconvenience of guessing how much gas you need give the attendant a $10 or $20, pump gas, go back and collect your change was a far worse experience than pump the gas, pay whatever you owe.

Wouldn't surprise me if the ad based gas stations just lost a 10-20% drop in customers if there was an alternative nearby without the ads.

I'm in BC, Canada, and I think it's all pay-first here. On the other hand, some places will accept debit cards at the pump, and it just pre-authorizes some set amount before permitting me to fill the tank. Of course, I'm only charged for the amount dispensed.

This strikes me as a reasonable solution, in that it removes the need to guess how much I need beforehand.

I don't know if boycott was the only reason, I wouldn't be surprised to hear they were often vandalized.

I wonder if any of that performance is due to the intrinsic safety requirements, especially the need to select only intrinsically safe components that will never produce enough energy to ignite gasoline vapors under any transient condition - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic_safety

Yet, they can process data fast enough to display video ads.

I don't think this is the reason.

Funny you should mention this. I regularly use the gas pumps at our local chain grocery store (Kroger) at two different locations; one with old pumps and one with new pumps. Originally the displays were very snappy and I could get in and out pretty quickly. About a year ago they updated the software on the "new" pumps and it got very, very slow (along with some questionable font choices). It was so bad that I went out of my way to visit the "old" pumps more frequently. Unfortunately, the old pumps were eventually "upgraded" and I now have to deal with crappy gas pump software everywhere.

So, I don't think it's based on the age of the pump. I'm guessing that there is a pretty standard architecture that they all adhere to. So yeah, I bet they run Java.

BTW: I've noticed this same thing with ATM software. I'm pretty sure they run Java as well.

Our local ATMs are slow because they pause to show ads.

"Please wait" is a deliberate feature, not a bug.

Even my car has a touchscreen that requires, on average about 1 second to register a touch.

I mean, a replacement capacitive touch screen for my samsung mobile is like 2000 Rs. (30 USD)

Its frustrating how far we have come and yet how behind we are.

I doubt your average phone screen would be happy being left in 80+ °C for prolonged periods of time. Automotive grade exists for a reason, as Tesla[1] found out the hard way.

[1]: https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows...

That’s not an excuse for shitty experience, that’s materials cost/part performance justification. Think first-gen iPhone: by now it’s worse in performance compared to better infotainment, but infotainment still sucks.

Weren't a lot of those windows ce back in the day? So regular c/cpp/... Apps under the hood, just terrible ones and on asthmatic hardware

Windows Phone 7 was ecstatically phenomenal though, despite being CE based.

>I bet they run Java. And maybe it runs on Windows CE device with anemic CPU..

On aside.. fuel pumps with embedded computers and payment terminals are US thing? There it is necessary to pay at the cashier after filling. (and it is most annoying part, because they try to upsell you hotdog/coffee, washer fluid and encourage to join loyalty program)

"Would you like to join our customer loyalty reward program?"

"No, I'm just naturally loyal. Runs in the family."

Java is quite fast.

In general, for 99% of tasks, if it takes more than a few milliseconds there's a network involved.

I’ve seen a few with the Windows BSOD but not enough info to figure out what’s otherwise going on.

Like atm and other common access point : used to be windows ce under the hood. Since the new line it can be windows 10 now, it's lightweight / embed version offers a kiosk mode (pick an app and the account at boot auto login and auto start the app and refuse anything that takes focus from the app basically... Except when something crash then you might see the underlying parts)

I think they run slower the hotter or colder it is outside.

But why? It's not like running at 20 MHz is going to produce an exponential amount of heat in the processor.

I mean, an ESP32 module runs at about 160 MHz, and using it with a capacitive touch screen almost as smooth as in a mobile.

I think that at least in some cases it has more to do with the LCD displays refresh rate and its response to cold temperatures. "As the liquid in the display freezes the response time slows down. In other words, it takes longer for the numbers and letters on the display to change (Turn ON or Turn OFF)."

Reference: https://focuslcds.com/journals/what-happens-to-the-lcd-in-co...

> I bet they run Java

Probably Electron apps.

probably a remote session to node.js app

Maybe California mandates the delay to discourage gas consumption...

This could actually be a good mechanism, it disincentivises people of (nearly) all incomes than flat taxes.

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