• Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    291·
    6 days ago

    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.

        • foo@feddit.uk
          3·
          6 days ago

          It could just be a backlit panel that you place a semi-transparent logo in front. Could be magnetic or slid into place. More resources than a sticker but probably far less than a system-on-a-chip running an OS and displaying the same picture on a monitor all day.

        • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          4·
          1 day ago

          This guy B2Bs. Y’all think companies aim for efficiency when their client is a megacorp? Heeelllll no. Corporations bleed each other out, too. The buck just gets passed on to you, the poor.

      • Soup@lemmy.world
        2·
        6 days ago

        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!

    • Brosplosion@lemmy.zip
      5·
      6 days ago

      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.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2·
        6 days ago

        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.

  • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
    31·
    7 days ago

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

    • foo@feddit.uk
      3·
      6 days ago

      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.

  • ayane_m@lemmy.vgEnglish
    13·
    6 days ago

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

    • The_Decryptor@aussie.zoneEnglish
      22·
      7 days ago

      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.

        • 0x0@lemmy.zip
          2·
          6 days ago

          Anecdotally, a friend had a bunch of raspberry pis running inside specific devices, running hot, SDcards would eventually fail.
          Started properly venting and cooling the pis… SDcards stopped failing (didn’t have to be MilitaryGrade™ either).

  • EldenLord@lemmy.world
    13·
    6 days ago

    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!!!😮‍💨🥵💕💦💦

  • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
    12·
    7 days ago

    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?

  • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
    15·
    7 days ago

    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.

    • cley_faye@lemmy.world
      15·
      7 days ago

      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.

      • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
        9·
        7 days ago

        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…

      • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
        4·
        7 days ago

        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.

          • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
            3·
            6 days ago

            **sharp exhale** You’re probably right. It’s just like the gas pumps. A big soda cup takes a few seconds to fill up, and the system knows that’s when you’re holding the button down, staring at the tap. All that makes you an advertising target for the duration.

            Is there some version of Occam’s Razor where “enshitification” is the most likely answer?

        • lb_o@lemmy.world
          3·
          7 days ago

          This implementation makes a lot of sense if you think about the ability to support variable amount of screens without the need of complex routing and addressing.

          It also has increased reliability where one failure doesn’t break the whole system.

          As for the need of it - well, that’s “slurp” they try to sell some cold sugar to impulsive people who like flashy things. That implies animations on the screen and being “not boring”.

          The fact that they changed to screens by itself means that backlit plastic label was doing poorer job than this abomination.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      6 days ago

      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.

      • 0x0@lemmy.zip
        1·
        6 days ago

        You’re forgetting the main driving factor behind being able to personalize a screen vs a plastic label: advertising.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          What I describe goes well beyond things with screens.

          For example computer mice have a microcontroller inside (and unless it serves a mechanical function, not much more than that) and cars have several, only one of which actual handles a proper screen (it’s actually a microprocessor rather than a mere microcontroller).

          The simplest microcontrollers have nowhere near enough memory to handle any half-way decent display (some nothing at all, some can just about handle a two-tone 320x200 display over I2C or SPI, some can handle 640x480 16-bit RGB but without animations as they don’t have enough memory to actual have a buffer for image composition) and yet they keep getting sold in massive numbers.

          Pretty much all digital electronics out there no matter how invisible to users has been replaced by embedded microcontrollers or, in a some use cases, single function controllers (which are basically microcontroller programs converted into integrated circuits).

          Embedded computing was a massive revolution in digital electronics.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      7 days ago

      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.

      • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        7 days ago

        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.

        • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          7 days ago

          its some serious cyberpunk 2077 shit.

          I can see someone slinging a cyberdeck pinging a drink machine to infiltrate the LAN.