Bootable Linux
What the hell is Linux the boss cried?
Alrighty then! In essence, what I cooked up was a "Lottery Terminal Rescue Kit" - a DIY fix-it-and-upgrade toolkit inspired by the beloved Knoppix Linux distribution. It's like having your very own Swiss Army knife for those troublesome lottery terminals in the field!
This distro was the original business card distro called Damn Small Linux!
It came complete:
- FTP server
- Web server
- Disk tools
- Run on almost any hardware.
For the purpose intended, substantial modifications were required to tailor the solution.
I developed scripted applications using the lesser-known LAU scripting language, which bears resemblance to both C and bash. These apps were designed to be user-friendly with a GUI interface for our non-Linux proficient field service representatives.
This innovative tool allowed our field service reps, who weren't Linux literate, to update specialised lottery gaming software installed on terminals directly in the field. In many instances, NCR's repair facility was able to utilise this system to replace or repair the specialised solid-state hard drives.
The primary objective was to surmount the slow 1200 baud data rate of the back end system, which featured built-in modems in each terminal. This was accomplished well before the era of high-speed Internet, where such tasks would have taken several days to complete.
Previously, we resorted to shipping specialised USB jump drives that necessitated a significant amount of overhead and expensive shipping.
This tool offered the convenience of an FTP site for downloading updated software, eliminating the need for frequent shipping for updates or repairs of those specialised USB jump drives, which supported only the EXT file system, incompatible with Windows.
For users in remote locations with limited or no internet access, we introduced ISO images for download, containing a local update for the Lottery machine firmware. These ISO images were prepared for each new release, ensuring compatibility with the latest versions. They were self-contained and provided information about the updates they contained, enabling end-users to confirm their software was up-to-date.
