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A computer upgrade shut down BART

(www.bart.gov)
232 points ksajadi | 3 comments | 05 Sep 25 14:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.831s | source
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ninetyninenine ◴[05 Sep 25 18:21 UTC] No.45141839[source]▶
I mean despite it's history the snark is well deserved. With so many companies and people in the bay paying taxes, where the hell does all the money go?

Interesting, tidbit you added here. But snark is needed for this situation.

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IshKebab ◴[05 Sep 25 18:42 UTC] No.45142101[source]▶
Yeah I was pretty blown away when I visited San Francisco just how archaic it was. In the same place you have driverless cars you have a metro payment system from like 70s USSR or something.
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1. jeffbee ◴[05 Sep 25 18:45 UTC] No.45142134[source]▶
The mag stripe 1960s technology worked much better than the new one, I'm sorry to report.
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2. kelnos ◴[05 Sep 25 21:49 UTC] No.45144047[source]▶
I'm sorry to report that you're looking at that tech through rose-tinted glasses. I remember electronic systems that would routinely fail to properly scan the mag stripes. I remember all the people working retail who had special tricks to try to get a card to scan, which would help maybe 25% of the time. I remember cards becoming demagnetized for random reasons and becoming useless. I remember when merchants would have to take a physical carbon imprint of the card, and would have no idea if the card was even real until the paper was processed, days or weeks later.
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3. jeffbee ◴[05 Sep 25 23:11 UTC] No.45144797[source]▶
We are talking specifically about the BART fare gates, which worked perfectly for 50 years.