If a system is extremely old you can use Alpine Linux with no desktop environment

Dude, you clearly have no idea about proprietary and specialised hardware. Which is fine, but you're choosing to attack people from your ignorance.

Don't do that

Those screens can easily run on an integrated Raspberry Pi microcontroller, they dont exactly have complex graphics

there's a word for those people: awesome

windows xp was peak; running anything before xp is legendary

I ran Linux 1994ish. Amiga OS before. Amstrad CPC 464 before. A friend ran Sinclair ZX-80, that was the first system I had access to.

I know it's not exactly the point of the article but for a lot of things, I reckon a good amount of 'innovation' was pretty pointless. I personally don't think I ever needed anything that Office 2003 can't do... (Of course I don't use any MS office to begin with but you get the point)

How else are you gonna show ads?

I had a 486DX running DOS for writing and editing CAM programs for CNC mills, lathes, pipe bender, and a laser cutter. And for funsies, an even older Macintosh that booted from a 5 1/4" floppy that ran a CMM, (co-ordinate measuring machine). And the software for the CMM ran from another 5 1/4" floppy.

This was about 2017 before I retired as a toolmaker.

https://www.fedoraproject.org/
https://linuxmint.com/
https://archlinux.org/
https://www.debian.org/
https://elementary.io/
https://system76.com/pop/

There are many safe open source options. If you need help there are ample resources available. If you want to you can also DM me.

=Let(), Lambda and Regex were good additions to Excel imo

We are far away from the release of the Raspberry Pi if that screen is running an early version of Windows CE. Putting a PC in the elevator to drive the screen was probably the most cost effective solution.

"stuck" more like happy to not have to deal with the last 15-ish years of microsoft ruining everything they previously excelled at.

I hate that you are right.

I like the little typo ... c://

Yeah, I'm well aware. But how much of my time would it take to get a bunch of windows software running smoothly on Linux?

I do appreciate the offer of personal help, that's an extremely generous offer to an internet stranger. Sincerely, thank you!

Was but theres no reason to keep doing that

I like that idea bit it'll never fly. That software is an asset. A bankrupt company needs every asset to be sold to cover as much percentage of their debt to their vendors as possible.
I've been in a company that went bankrupt and I've been the vendor of a company that went bankrupt. Being the vendor was the harder experience.

New ones probably use something newer. The 20 year old elevator in a hospital will only be upgraded if something breaks.

Idk, it was horrendously insecure, would freeze a lot, and missing creature comforts like window tiling.

Tbh I think you're letting nostalgia blind you to XP's flaws a little.

If they kept refining Win7 it would've been great.

Man, remember when people used to break into offices to steal the RAM?

My work experience in around 1995 was spent at a local computer firm.

At one point a group of men in balaclavas showed up, the boss stopped playing Doom long enough to cover the security camera and hand over a bunch of crumpled banknotes, and I was handed this pile of SIMMs to put in a test rig to make sure they were OK to sell.

I also had to straighten the pins on used/stolen 486 CPUs, and pretty sure at one point was taken to break into a warehouse. There was certainly nobody else in the whole building, and we loaded the van with a bunch of cheap looking boxes before taking them back to HQ.

The boss was also banging a girl in my class, which in later years I learned makes him a paedo. Times sure were simpler in 1995.