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Comment by ClassyJacket | Hacker News Reader

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ClassyJacket·

Melbourne's public transport ticket scanning machines are running on Windows CE... hope (but doubt) they have a plan.

https://wongm.com/2012/06/myki-runs-on-top-of-windows-ce/

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Trialling its replacement in 2024

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/15/we-wi...

If they're not connected to the internet, does it matter?

Seems like a ticketing system would need some connectivity no?

Doesn't have to be internet-accessible though. Even if they need to interact with the "open" internet, they can do so through a gateway - there are many industrial-grade, DIN-form-factor VPN routers that will take an internet feed and some VPN credentials and spit out a "clean" VPN'd port so your vulnerable thing can stay isolated from the open internet.

These days yes but in the olden days no.

Brisbane City Council used to sell tickets with a magnetic strip that would be read and written with how many trips you have can take on the ticket.

You still need someone to write and maintain the apps running on these devices, and that's getting really hard.

Symbol barcode scanner PDAs used to run Windows CE also. IIRC, there was a cheaper PDA-like version with a laser scanner usable instead of the bulky industrial pistol-grip ones. I'm sure UPS or FedEx still use WinCE-based devices to do their job.

I'm curious. Does anyone know what model / OS Amazon fulfillment centers use for their field force handheld devices?

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