We use to run Stratus VOS on Continuum series hardware at a lottery/poker machine company I worked at in the mid 2000's. It handled the jackpot system which decided which of 13,500 poker machines in our state would jackpot at any given time.

A reliable beast - never failed once in the entire time I worked there. Based on PA-RISC if I recall correctly.

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jll29 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Great story, thanks. I wish it said more about the architecture and also VOS.

Speaking of reliable beasts, I own(ed) a HP PA-RISC workstation that never crashed in six years, and it was even purchased refurbished (second hand, and educational rebate, and still the cost of a car in 1996 - but worth every penny).

I'd add "R.I.P. HP 9000 715/75" but of course she is STILL working now, twenty years later, and she is sitting right next to me (also got a second 715/100XC for spare parts in case on day they are needed).

	▲	sdcfgy 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The old workstations were always pretty damn reliable. I’ve got a Sun Ultra 30 in storage. I may grab it and boot it up and see if it still works. Suspect the NVRAM and power supply caps are duff though.

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zorked 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The poker machines are connected? Why wouldn't they just jackpot locally and indepdendently?

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rafaelvasco 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Can't have several machines "jackpotting" at the same time or similar time. The prizing algorithm is very strict.

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andyjohnson0 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Is this widely known? Presumably the jackpots are sufficiently geographically distributed so that a player who observes one wouldn't be incentivised to pause playing?

	▲	wildzzz 16 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		These are probably the kind of machines you sometimes see in gas stations and bars, there's only a few of them in any location at most so there's never too many players nearby to be dissuaded from playing. Plus, a jackpot isn't the only way to win money.
	▲	freeopinion an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I don't think it is widely known how much casino gaming machines are allowed to control outcome. Indeed, in some cases they are required by law to control outcome.

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mech422 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

IIRC, Stratus was M68K (like 12 per cpu board organized into 3 logical cpu's for fault checking)

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kjs3 an hour ago | parent [-]

The OG Stratus FT was mc68k; what a beast. They moved to Intel i860 in the early 90s (XA series...I had a processor board from one hanging in my conference room back in the day), then HP-PA (Continuum series) in the 2000s and these days it's apparently virtualized on x86. Still very popular in the credit card processing world.

	▲	Nursie an hour ago \| parent [-]
		That's where I came across them in around 03/04, though the company was moving away from them at the time. Two intel processors somehow kept in lockstep, allowing either one (or its RAM) to fail and be replaced with no interruption to the system.