So, PC World Austrialia just published an article on the “Top Ten worst uses of Windows“, but they are quite wrong in one aspect, Locomotive control systems.

Normally I would have just skimmed through the article, but when I hovered over the link to the Locomotive Control System (number 5 in the list) I noticed that it linked to the QES-III system from Qtron-Wabtec.  Which just happens to be the company my Father used to work for and the system he designed for them.

It definitely doesn’t run windows. I remember him telling me about the custom real time operating system/application he programed for that system and about the positively tiny/slow processor in the system. I mean the graphing calculator I had in high school was faster then that processor. But that doesn’t really matter at all when it came to locomotive control systems, as it was plenty fast enough for everything it needed to do.

2-3 years ago my father started his own company, TMV Control Systems, as a partnership with Brookville Equipment Corporation, a railway supplier in Brookville, Pennsylvania. He’s developed a new locomotive control system for them and it’s being integrated into everything from passenger locomotives, rail yard switching locomotives, streetcars, and sweet new multi-engine fuel saving locomotives.

So yeah, it is definetly possible that Microsoft inflitrated other locomotive control systems suppliers but not Qtron-Wabtec (with the QES-III) or TMV Control Systems.

UPDATE:

• Article reposted on network world: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/29644?ts
• And on slashdot: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/11/003251