AEM-7 status

R36 Combine Coach wrote:

ApproachMedium wrote:The ALP44M models were nothing but problems, regardless of being newer they were always a constant headache with that Windows 3.1 computer that ran everything.

If the microprocessor ALP44s were so bad, why were they ordered for Midtown Direct instead of additional ALP44 "E" units?

MBTA riders and employees have been asking the same things about their microprocessor-borked GP40MC trash heaps for 20 years now. They could've ordered freight-to-passenger conversions as dead-on simple and reliable as CDOT's GP40-2H's produced the very same calendar year of 1996...but no, the Siren's call of "newfangled technology" beckoned the procurement dept. to steer that ship straight onto the rocks.

ApproachMedium wrote:The ALP44M models were nothing but problems, regardless of being newer they were always a constant headache with that Windows 3.1 computer that ran everything.

Ye gods. Windows 3.1 being used for controlling something as critical as a train? That makes my head hurt.

don't worry I am told most US nuclear subs still use Windows ME.

DutchRailnut wrote:don't worry I am told most US nuclear subs still use Windows ME.

I doubt that. I think they're using QNX or some form of Linux now. They had trouble with Windows NT, and that was the basis for 95!

Minor correction, Windows 95 and NT were still two separate bloodlines with 95 still relying on a DOS boot process and earlier code.

It wasn't until Windows XP that the two lines were combined to be based on the NT codebase.

spRocket wrote:

ApproachMedium wrote:The ALP44M models were nothing but problems, regardless of being newer they were always a constant headache with that Windows 3.1 computer that ran everything.

Ye gods. Windows 3.1 being used for controlling something as critical as a train? That makes my head hurt.

Whats wrong with windows 3.1?

David Benton wrote:

spRocket wrote:

ApproachMedium wrote:The ALP44M models were nothing but problems, regardless of being newer they were always a constant headache with that Windows 3.1 computer that ran everything.

Ye gods. Windows 3.1 being used for controlling something as critical as a train? That makes my head hurt.

Whats wrong with windows 3.1?

It bootstapped on top of old DOS versions with a minimum system requirement of DOS 3.1, which was 7+ years old at the time and pre-dated Windows 1.0. Thus, it had to cheat death at every turn in order to hack that ancient swill up with multitasking capability. Sneeze and the thing could crash. It wasn't until Win95 when they hard-wired it to DOS 7, dropped support for any previous DOS versions, and plugged the old DOS code up with Win-specific stabilizers that it started to become decently stable for a production environment.


[/traumatically remembers way too many middle school writing assignment ruined by blue screens of death in Word 2.0]

The actual operating system was DOS on those things. It used a specially programmed windows 3.1 or it might have been 3.11 windows for workgroups, that was used to display and access the data from the system on the screen. The display replaced the giant panel full of fault lights that was over your head.

I think you'll find dos and the windows 3.1 was adequate for industrial applications , and apparently used up to 2008 in new applications. The individual program and equipment sounds like it was problematic , but that could happen with any operating system.
From Wikipedia,
"Windows 3.1 found a niche market as an embedded operating system after becoming obsolete in the PC world. As of November 2008, both Virgin Atlantic and Qantas employed it for some of the onboard entertainment systems on long-distance jets. It also sees continued use as an embedded OS in retail cash tills.[25] It is also used as a secondary application in DOSBox to enable emulation of Win16 games on 64-bit Windows.
On July 9, 2008, it was announced that Windows for Workgroups 3.11 for the embedded devices channel would no longer be made available for OEM distribution as of November 1, 2008"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1x" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Most industrial applications of Windows and its variants are for the display screens, etc. I just did a plant out in Nassau County that featured two screens running Windows Embedded. They're purely display things, and non-critical data collection - you can take a sledge to both, the plant will still do it's thing because the actual control is run by PLCs running under VxWorks.

I doubt any locomotive (or much else) actually runs the nuts and bolts systems with Windows, but it's a quite common platform for touchscreens and SCADA systems. People see it on bootup and freak, though.

yea the cab display ran on that for sure. What the actual PLC or whatever was in the back ran on I have no idea, but whatever it was it never worked as good as the old cardfile systems the O E and AEM-7 DCs had.

The 945 has been spotted on the “O” track by the Wilmington Shops
today 12/12.

945 is a DC motor.

ApproachMedium wrote:945 is a DC motor.

Any clue why it is there?

The 945 is in Washington (Ivy City) today 12/14.