Slurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp

That's no BIOS. That's systemd.

I guess I'm the kind of person that can spot a systemd screen from across the room now

It uses Linux? That's actually nice to see (but do you really need a full blown OS to show a logo?)

The thing that gets me is that they seem to have a separate machine for each display
- easier to buy 10 rpis than a single embedded system with 10 diplay ports
- I hope the machine is up to the job. I'd pack at least 64 gigs of RAM and a nice GPU.
- Yeah, modular systems. Buy 2, buy 20, setup time is roughly the same.
Every one of them is running a crypominer
- At least the cooling is sufficient.
- 👀 *could be running a cryptominer
Probably there for "easily changing out logos of different flavor instead of using paper/plastic printout"
- Sure but there's a different machine for each display.
  One crashed. The others didn't.
  Im very much a 'hell, lets take it apart right here and figure out what's going on' kinda girl, but this is a sign that i never want to see the inside of that machine.
- They might also monitor the temperature and amount of slurpee left so they can notify employees to refill it
Not just to show the logo, but to run the entire machine. Probably IoT enabled, so monitoring and maintenance actions and OTA are important enough that it’s worth having a very slim version of Linux on there instead of taking the security risk of building up from a lower level.
The computer controls the whole machine the logo part is a bonus. It also changes to like a do not use when Its not frozen or out of order.
So working on ad machines before a lot of them connect to an external ftp site to pull down the latest version of the logo. Things like this you don’t care if it’s secure or not
- Until it displays porn
Probably installed as a unit, computer with monitor. Perhaps a modifed version of a Linux OS?

In 2025 we boot a whole Linux system to display a logo.

Does it run Wayland? :P

I've never seen one of these, but I assume it performs other functions - surely monitoring sensors, probably reporting that data, maybe allowing triggering maintenance functions, etc.
That said, processing and storage is so cheap on this scale that it's probably better (and cheaper) to go with a tried and true, widely supported system, than it is to optimize with custom hardware/firmware.
- I assume it performs other functions
  Advertising.
- I've seen a very similar print out when installing/loading Arch for the first time.
a whole linux system isn't even all that crazy. if it runs doom it can probably also run linux so probably everything from a potato to a dog's left testicle can run linux.
- Kind of discriminatory, what about the right??
Wouldn't be surprised if they ran animated splash.
Hell, wouldn't be surprised if they started pushing ads through the screens.
I feel like that isn't that far fetched, considering this machine probably has some sort of Internet connectivity so you can update the labels remotely and do other remote maintenance/monitoring tasks.

Now all I want to do is invent a blended cocktail called "Kernel Panic".

200ml tequila 400mg ritalin 3mg lsd 3 scoops vanilla(? Need help with the flavor) ice cream 200ml milk or plain yogurt
Salt rim with cocaine and ascorbic acid sip gently.
Edit: do not drink this. This is the second most dangerous coctail recipe I've ever written.
- Kernel panic indeed. 3mg is quite a bit of 'cid, and amphetamines tend to make trips pointy and bad. Tequila might balance it out tho. Lime sorbet for the ice cream maybe?
- Ok, but ... 3mg of lsd is a lot for the whole class, same with them amphetamines.
  And on the other hand you serve tequila & milk in breakfast numbers?
  I'm not saying I'm not writing this down, but damn.
- Eeew, vanilla!
- This is an important comment
With illegal amounts of alcohol, caffeine, and ketamine
- But, like 90% corn. Right?
gotta be something with cream(derivative) and citrus.

Next time take a better picture so we can tell you how to fix it.

Or at least how to run DOOM on it.
- Oh. Easily. But you cant affordenough slushie to finish a level.
The flash memory the OS is stored on is borked.
Filesystem check shows dependency errors attempting to check ext4 fs on /dev/mmcblk0p2. Assuming ext4 and fsck are installed (it should be if this isn't a mega-custom ultra stripped down private distribution) this shouldn't be possible.
Further down networking fails to initialize leading to a bunch of fails before it succeeds and reaches its target, only to be stopped by the dependency errors again.

We’ve gone from SunnyD to SystemD.

…I’m sorry

This implies every drink and its display is handled by its own computer running linux. Potentially mtndew has a different IP than coca cola.

Internet of Slurp
I wonder if there is a refill cartridge with the flavour in it that the OS reads from to always display the right logo. Or maybe a touchscreen that the workers use to change it manually.

Is it just me who feels that having one processing unit per display is a waste?

I mean, I get it why they did it (it's way easier to just have one SBC per-display, both on the hardware and the software sides), but if designing such a system I would still try to come up with a single board solution if only because waste gets on my nerves.

You'd think a damn sticker would be good enough
- Human replaceable printed paper labels, manual stick.
- How do you charge for a service contract on a sticker?
- But what about yet another bright light in someone’s face? Do you not want another bright light in someone’s face? Everyone loves bright lights in someone’s face!
I'd argue that a custom board is more wasteful since they are single use. Using a cheapo COTS processor that drives a single display and runs Linux is reusable in the long run.
- True, such a low number of production units design would really only make sense if you could find an off the shelf solution to drive multiple displays.
  If these displays are not supposed to be animated and they're reasonably low resolution (say, 800x600 20bit RGB or less), they could be connected via SPI and pretty much every microcontroller out there has multiple SPI ports, so even a cheap SBC would work for that). However I expect that getting XWindows or Wayland in Linux to work with such displays would be a PITA.
  I've only ever got software running under Linux to control a tiny 2-tone display via I2C - on an Orange Pi SBC - and it's totally its own thing which happens to be running under Linux sending low-level commands via the I2C dev and not at all integrated with X-Windows or Wayland. This would also work fine if the comms was via SPI (in fact the code barelly changes since I'm using a library that does most of the low-level work for me).
  To just display a static image or a sequence of static images loaded from storage in a bunch of screens low-resolution enough to support SPI (so 800x600 or less) I expect something like that would be fine.
  The more I think about it, there more I expect this thing could run on a single $50 SBC as long as the connector exposes at least an SPI device and 8 independent I/O lines (given how SPI works, shared SPI bus is fine with one separate Chip Select line for each screen as long as the SPI device under Linux can run on a mode that lets your code control the CS line itself, and the other 4 I/O lines are for touch detection) assuming touch position is irrelevant.
My local gas station now has screens on the pump. Not the big unit, but the part you put in your gastank. It shows shitty ads. Also in the Netherlands you can't lock the gas pump, so you have to manually press it to get more fuel, so you are almost forced to watch shitty ads.
It's exactly like this https://www.team-bhp.com/news/ads-fuel-dispenser-nozzle-havent-seen-anything

Not a blue screen... that's maybe a kernel panic but can't read it myself.

It's failing storage, top half of the display is EXT4 complaining it can't read the SD card, bottom half is the result of that, services can't start.
- My slurped machine needs an HD upgrade? But I just upgraded it dammit!

Nooo don't! It's snow crash 😱

That only works on hackers
Ba ma zu na la amu pa go lu ne me a ba du?

It's not the bios and they'll never get a bsod. It's a damn systemd unit.

didn't systemd add a bsod equivalent some months ago? iirc optional default off so nobody will ever see it?
- IDK but it's strange if true, because I'd say that a BSOD is more like a kernel panic? Obviously, I'm not an expert.

Blue Slurpee Of Death

Lol I think people are missing the BSOD reference

Superhero origin story. What powers gained?

Uncontrollable urge to tell people to install Linux.
They became Freakazoid
In the florescent bathroom of food court, nano crouched by the toilet, vomiting his guts up after consuming the kernel-krush slushie.
He thought being the lowest common denominator was bad; used by noob sysadmins and confused interns, until this moment.
The slushie hadn’t tasted right. It was supposed to be "Byteblast Blueberry," but it had an aftertaste of burnt silicone and magic smoke. Something in it was wrong. nano could feel it rewriting him from the inside.
lines of strange lua code scrawled across the back of his eyelids. His .bash_history was being overwritten. His sense of indentation… sharpened.
As his tremors subsided and the last of the neon goo slid down the drain, he looked up into the cracked mirror. Something had changed.
His terminal font was crisper. His cursor… blinking with authority. And there, under the stall's flickering light, he whispered:
"...:wq"
Suddenly, the doors of ever bathroom stall flung open in unison, people shit themselves in fear as his inner thoughts wrote themselves onto the walls of his stall.
nano inhaled deeply, as a familiar scent wafted from under the entrance door, and a shadow stretched to the far wall.
"emacs..." He muttered to himself, before the entrance door crashed open. emacs snorted and coughed, this bloated monstrosity, confused for a text editor, was actually an operating system.
"Poor little nano" he chuckled "serves you right for trying to be more than a fuckin' stepping stone. Why don't you go hang out with Edge and Bing, you're about as useful as a clippy themed Chrome extension."
emacs' voice reverberated through the tiled chamber like a RAM leak in a core dump. His trenchcoat, stitched from thousands of unreadable .el files, dragged behind him.
neovim exited the bathroom stall, letting emacs bask in his new glory for the first time.
"Fuck off, Emacs. You press seven keys just to copy a line."
A silence fell across the stalls. Somewhere, a urinal cake cracked.
Emacs stepped forward, snarling. "I’m the past and the future, nano. I’ve got an email client, a music player, a fucking psychiatrist built-in. You? You’re a Hello World that got a pity install"
neovims eyes narrowed, one coloured gruvbox, the other catppuccin as he clenched his first "My name... Is Neo (vim)"
Next time:
neovim & emacs - Battle of the Keybinds
Will neovims LSP destroy emacs s-expressions?
Can emacs remember how to quit in time?
- lel awesome text. so many great lines...
  His .bash_history was being overwritten. His sense of indentation… sharpened.
  ...
  His cursor… blinking with authority.
  ...
  Suddenly, the doors of ever bathroom stall flung open in unison, people shit themselves in fear as his inner thoughts wrote themselves onto the walls of his stall.

Man it's so crazy how many small computers are around us. Just a few years ago that would have been a plastic label they swapped out when needed.

And it probably should be. We could even have a set of small plates embedded somewhere for quick swapping on demand.
I like computers, but having an individual computer to run a single drink display really is overkill. At least use one to drive all the labels simultaneously, if you still want the ability to display nifty animations of liquid flowing above the actual liquid actually visibly flowing.
- They're probably paying a dollar or two for a esp32 at volume. When one fails a tech probably just throws the old one away.
  tween this and the e-ink pricetags on merchandise...
- Exactly. This implementation makes no sense. Unless the logos are animated, need to change frequently, or supposed to show advertising (I hope not), a backlit plastic label would do the same job just fine. In fact, that has done the same job for decades at this point.
And it still should be.
Cause its stupid. This is even dumber than walgreens replacing freezer doors with LCD screens that don't let you see whats inside.
- yeah, that is the most f'd up thing, I saw it at a travel plaza, it looks like the fever dream of some tech mogul's kid that they just sink money into because they're infatuated with it.
The difference in what can be done and the amount of work that needs to go into it between discrete digital electronics and just having a microcontroller or even microprocessor there is HUGE.
Also with microcontrollers and microprocessors most of the work moves from Electronics Engineering and circuit-design space to Software Engineering and software development, and the latter experts are easier to find plus the development cycle is way more friendly when it's just code which you can change and upload at will rather than physical circuits were simulation can only go so far before you have to actually create the physical hardware.
Even more entertaining, microcontrollers are so stupidly cheap (the most basic ones cost a few cents) that throwing in a microcontroller is almost always significantly cheaper than doing the control stuff with discrete electronics.
(For example a screen that size can be controlled by as ESP32 which if you embed it in your circuit yourself costs maybe $1 or $2, though that wouldn't be running Linux and programming it be much more low level, plus it's probably the cheapest you can go)
I actually got an EE degree back when we embedded circuits were just starting to be used so I didn't really get taught how to use them, then went for a career in software instead of electronics and came back to digital electronics years later and it's like night and day between the discrete digital electronics age and the everything is a computing device era.
- You're forgetting the main driving factor behind being able to personalize a screen vs a plastic label: advertising.

Oh yeah baby crash my bootloader!💕 Pump me full of bloatware and make my integers overflow🥵 I want you to leave my USB port dysfunctional for days and my ram displaced come on baby do it make me BSOD!!!😮‍💨🥵💕💦💦

I hate to break ot to you, but this is a linux drink. All that will you'll get is a kernel panic
This is better than the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs skit I watched the other day. Love it! 😂
- Thank you, I had fun writing it

That's not bios; that's the os. It's not a bsod; that's systemd running on Linux.

This is why we can't have raspberry pi

https://www.fbdfrozen.com/hubfs/24-M4MF-0001_03.pdf

Doesn't look identical but it's probably similar.

How often do they change flavors that they need a full blown computer to show the logo, probably downloading it from a remote server, compared to just a backlighted sheet with a printed image?