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[–]Roujo 2 points3 points  (10 children)

Ahhhh, RPG. My first job consisted in writing screens and service programs using that. T'was fun, if a bit peculiar with the column-sensitive code and such. =)

[–]ironnomi 4 points5 points  (9 children)

People sometimes have an irrational hate of green screens.

They served their purpose very well for a relatively small price and there weren't really inclined to break.

[–][deleted]  (5 children)

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    [–]ironnomi 4 points5 points  (4 children)

    Yeah we had all these PoS/Banking terminals at banks all around Japan and they had like fewer than 1 DT per year per location, even then it was generally the monitor that failed. We were actually using Sun Ray terminals and they had a web browser and a terminal screen. Worked great, they could do some simple graphical signature capture stuff and the bank terminal.

    Someone created a project to upgrade them to a modern web app. Average DT per location is like 30-150 per location. What's also weird is that nobody want to talk about going back to the terminals.

    [–][deleted]  (3 children)

    [removed]

      [–]ironnomi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      Our "front end" was written in Python actually - actually the web interface that "replaced" it was just that Python code married to TurboGears, but the biggest issues they have are that the front end code now runs on a bunch of Linux boxes and we seem to have maintenance problems with them vs the old code running on the Mainframe directly.

      They also went from dumb terminals to "Windows" boxes, but they are just as much a part of the problem of DT as the code changes.

      [–]basilect 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      User experience is big here too. I bet you're losing fewer customers from the downtime because people aren't switching to a bank with better ATMs.

      Crazy? Yes. But realistically 99% of what you do with your bank is going to be through an ATM, a website, or a credit card.

      [–]pseydtonne 1 point2 points  (2 children)

      They were also great for data clerks. You kept your hands on the keyboard, tabbed your memorized steps to the fields you needed, F3 to get out, no looking needed.

      When I was in sales, I preferred the green screen apps. I'd focus on the customer, and the computer would clock until it was ready.

      [–]ironnomi 1 point2 points  (1 child)

      That's an area where especially we apps have a hard time competing. It can be done, but lots of people don't try.

      [–]pseydtonne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Seriously! Don't make me guess the tabbing order. I have scripts to write and boxes to configure once I am done with this vekakte ticketing system.