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Panda Express Drive-Thru Speaker
(programming.dev)
uvnc_service service is stopping. uvnc_service service was stopped successfully. Windows can check online for a solution to the problem.
Seriously, what is the utility of running these devices not meant for human interaction on Windows? This looks like it’s probably on embedded Windows.
They run windows embedded. They are pretty shitty industrial PCs manufactured for Delphi (there are other brands but they’re all pretty much the same) running on 486s with 512mb or 1gb of RAM. The Aloha server runs a service that communicates with the display via serial or TCP/IP. The other guy that made a joke about it running windows 7 was too generous, every single one I’ve worked on is running Windows Embedded 2002 (AKA XP.)
They are purpose built, passively cooled, waterproof, and very robust industrial PCs. They pre-date using embedded Linux in everything and the effort of building a specialized kernel likely isn’t worth the effort. Since the industry is moving to DMBs (Digital Menu Boards) in drive throughs anyway, these will likely be the last iteration since they can just display the order on the DMB itself.
Kitchen monitors are also industrial PCs running Windows Embedded, but NCR makes those and they’re updated a lot. NCR (and their Aloha system) are fully committed to Windows for some reason, but Windows Embedded and IoT are pretty much on par with Linux for this application. That’s basically what it was made to do, and it works better than you might think.
Sorry about the info dump, I used to be an embedded systems engineer and I’ve spent the past decade in restaurant IT.
Don't apologise, this was super interesting to read about
Genuinely curious, is there a job market for these devices and is it in .NET or something lower-level like C++?
This lines up, I think Windows Embedded had a purpose when Linux wasn’t as useful for setting up just about anything. The only purpose for Windows Embedded these days is the technical knowledge sunk into making it work for these applications. There are still plenty of production systems hanging out running the old Embedded OS versions.
It looks like Microsoft is aware that continuous support for Embedded is a sunk cost when they can help get these systems on Linux, maybe even running using Azure resources.
From the Windows CE paging Wikipedia.