Volvo's "Safety Car" Runs Windows 98

[Tomas]

"MSNBC is carrying a report on Volvo's new "Safety Car." It sounds pretty cool, too, until you get to the part that mentions it runs Windows 98 as its operating system. Yikes! Be sure to reboot your car frequently to avoid crashes."

[redrumloa]

I just looked at my watch, calander, Daytimer and pinched myself. When I read this I figured I must either be dreaming, or it is April 1st! :-o

[Coder]

Hell no!

Coder

[4pLaY]

The weird part is this is for real! how could they? i mean Win98? jesus! even Win2k would be bether! or why not go with linux? its free and offers much more security! something tells me these guys aint the brightest when it comes to computers.

[Peggus]

This gives BSOD an entirely new meaning.

Or imagine the servicemanual... "Close all windows, exit the car, reenter the car and open all windows...."

 :-D  :-D

[jd997uk]

      But for all that, the car has five separate computer systems (running Windows 98, by the way),

No, no ,no, no, no (one no for each computer).
Actually, think about this; if this car is running 5 copies of Windows 98, there's little chance of it actually making it out of the garage. Hence, calling it a 'Safety' car is technically correct, since the only crash it's ever going to encounter is a system one.

-john

[zudobug]

Haha!  I found it!

I read this in the Amiga One forum ages ago...

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the
computer industry with the car industry and stated :
"if Ford had kept up with the technology like the computer industry
has,we would all be driving £25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the
gallon."


In response to Bill's comments, Ford Motors issued a press release
stating:

If Ford had developed technology like Microsoft; we would all be
driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to
buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You
would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the
windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before
you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause
your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car unless you
bought "CarNT",but then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was
reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive-but would
only run on five percent of the roads.

7. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would
all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same sized butt.

9. The airbag system would ask, "are you sure?" before deploying.

10. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you
out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door
handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

11. Ford would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set
of Rand McNally road maps (now a Ford subsidiary), even though they
neither need nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would
immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more.
Moreover, Ford would become a target for investigation by the Justice
Dept.

12. Every time Ford introduced a new car, car buyers would have to
learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would
operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

14. it wouldn't accept that any other types of car exist

Cool eh?

Cheers,

-zudo

[Step]

Those 14 points are truly funny, and so darn true too.
But i dont get the statement from Bill, why would the cars be cheap ?? Are Microsoft selling any product that is cheap ??
 I dont think so, none that i have heard of anyway.
The man is a maniac and should be locked up together with that monkey S. Balmer.

Its a shame what Ford has done to Volvo, turning their cars into these monsters, damn now i cant cross the street if theres a volvo in vicinity, who knows what its up too... :-)

[Seehund]

Come on! I don't believe this for one minute. It's probably a case of a cluless reporter.
If any version of Windows is used anywhere it's probably in some navigation or entertainment system or some other non-vital gimmick gadget.
Besides, it's the Volvo Safety Concept Car (SCC).

And who the hell would want a "car" made after 1970 anyway?

[Tomas]

it dosent make much sense, thats for sure.... who would wait 5mins to be able to start the car?? since win98 has too boot...

If this is true i really hope its just the prototype heh

[Elektro]

They should just install DOS... :roll:

[ikir]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!! :-o

[KennyR]

I can see it now...you've just turned into the Freeway, accelerated to 70...then :

ACCESS FAULT IN MODULE: Steer.dll

Please re-install windows.

*CRASH*

Heh. Don't enough things in this world suck without adding Windows98 to a car? ;-)

[x303]

What a total bulls**t story. I work @ volvo and even I (or my boss) don't know anything about this. Even *your* computers overhere run Win2K.

ps: We all know what MSN stands for, don't we ?!?

[color=FF0000]x303[/color] :-D  :-D  :-D

[vortexau]

Since WinDohs took over from MsDOS one (of two) factors has remained constant. -snipped-

The other factor that has remained constant? Let me quote the final line to two out of three questions from Ray Shaw's Q&A column in 'e-Mail' (an insert in Saturday's Courier-Mail, a Brisbane newspaper):

...but I suspect the best solution is to back up your data, format the hard disk and do a fresh install of Windows.

Finally the best solution is to back up your data, format the hard disk and do a fresh install of Windows. Works every time.

So if one or more of those 'systems' get fragmented and/or slow or BSOD do you have to call the Auto-club to do the above? :-?

BTW- I call that "Bill's constant"...a WinDohs computer law.