Originally posted by maddog
16MB RAM can't run Win2k or above so must be a Win9x system or Linux. I didin't figure these signs were PC powered. The plasma screens are nice and high definition. Its airport-like.
They don't last long. Sydney's suburban rail people started installing 'plasma' information displays about 4 years ago - the orginal installation is now so badly burned that it makes the displays hard to read - especially if something different from normal is displayed.
The 'airport' line plasma displays started to get serious colour 'bleeding' after about 12 months.
Most of the other 'plasma's on the system have shown serious burn in after 12 months.
Possibly they have 'woken up', the major station where I work has plasma displays on one platform that are 2 years old and showing burn in, but they just recently 'completed' the project on the other platforms by using monochrome LED displays, which I think are much more readable (although less flexable) and will last much longer.
I've seen photos of the Sydney rail plasma displays with 'DHCP server unavailable' stuck in the middle of the screen. The software is simple minded as well - on my work's station (the one above) one of the pair of displays on my platform some how got its time changed. The 'due out' time on that unit spent two weeks adding 10 minutes to every thing.
I often think people use windows on these things due to a perception is cheaper, and developers are cheaper, but they seem to pretty well get what they paid for, a system that won't last very long and is not terribly reliable.
I still think the most readable of the lot was the huge old 'lamp next to station name' displays, where every possible station was painted up on a large board with a lamp next to it. If the train stopped the lamp was lit.
They apparently replaced these with the Windows based plasma abominations 'cause parts were hard to get. The things were based on relays. Any electronics hobby shop could have supplied parts
