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Cylons run Windows XP

Toasters will not upgrade to Vista

THE FATE of the robotic race, the Cylons, in Battlestar Galactica, has been thrown into doubt after it has been revealed that the base ships are still using Windows XP.

A sharp eyed Gizmodo reader has found that if you look at the latest episode of the television show at minute 9:26 in episode 7, Guess What's Coming to Dinner? you can clearly see a Windows XP dialogue box on one of the screens.

Although we cannot see what the dialogue box says, we guess it might be saying something like "error message 283836 hybrid disconnected".

It is not clear why the Cylons have refused to update to Vista. We cannot think that a base ship would care about licensing problems, so we can only assume that the toasters are waiting for the next version of Windows to come out.

While your average Cylon might not notice a difference between XP and Vista, Microsoft moves to assure us that they might be unaware of the 'security issues' involved in not upgrading. However as any Six will tell you, if you are launching a nuclear strike on a colony the last thing you want is a pop-up screen asking you if you are sure you are want to fire your weapons everytime you pull the fracking trigger.

The Galactica of course uses pre-windows technology. In an early episode it was revealed that the ship only survived because the Cylons could not hack into its networks because there was no wi-fi connection. µ

L'Inq
Gizmodo

Comments

Cylons vs OS

Well, they lost against the other group of cylons. Maybe they were running OSX or Linux?
posted by : Bertho, 28 May 2008

Vista FTW!

No, the opposing side of Cylons were in fact using Vista, which is why they handily defeated the XP using Cylons. When you render a fire fight in Dx10, only the Vista side comes to the party armed.
posted by : Moshpit, 28 May 2008

Correct

In the official story the 'galactica' actually survives because they didn't update to all the latest computers and software and connected networks and so the virus the robots used to disable defences didn't work .
As for me, I assume the concept of what happened with the cylons is that they installed vista on the robots and then they went berserk and killed off most of humanity, and who can blame them?

posted by : W.-, 28 May 2008

...

Long time ago so probably Windows 3.1.
posted by : AD, 28 May 2008

Firefly

If you're eagle-eyed like me, you can also spot a Windows XP Add/Remove Hardware wizard dialogue box in episode 12 of Firefly...


You'd think Microsoft would have shipped the next version of Windows by 2517 A.D...

=D
posted by : Max Bell, 28 May 2008

So that explains why..

..the hybrid is always speaking mumbo-jumbo. Microsoft still has yet to get the narrator & voice recognition working well enough to use every day, even in Vista.
posted by : Travis, 28 May 2008

Networking notworking?

My understanding of the story (at least in the new BSG) is that the Galactica survives not because of the lack of wireless, but because of the lack of networking altogether (not sure if that's what you meant, W.-). Sneakernet FTW!
posted by : PeriSoft, 28 May 2008

Here's my two cents.

I've never watched the series, though I consider myself an avid fan of science fiction, so I feel qualified to speak on this matter.

Normally in any situation they would have a generic pc running a flash applet that looks futuristic enough, I believe they did it on Star Trek, so I must shun the producers for not making said effort...unless it was really a software joke :D
posted by : Macro_Pheliac, 28 May 2008

So does the folk in Serenity

There is an episode in Serenity where a chick repairs some machine for garbage disposal and you can clearly see the desktop of XP lol. Google it
posted by : Sasha, 28 May 2008

Maybe the human race will be lucky...

Maybe the Bots are running Windows XP. You know, no service pack at all?

After all, they must have a heck of a long latency on that Windows update web site...

Remember that awful security hole via a html help file? ;-)



posted by : Stuart Halliday, 28 May 2008

mah

Why would someone post something like this?
posted by : Fiz, 28 May 2008

Clearly, the issue is...

...that M$ not only is going to fail with Windows 7 as badly as it did with Vi$ta, but apparently every other version of Windows ever to come out. Which is why XP is still in use in the space-faring future. All the advanced computer systems probably still require MIDI ports or something anyway.
posted by : Motoman, 28 May 2008

@firefly

Well, the reason firefly still uses XP is because all the next versions suck. Can you imagine what kind of issues you have as a space pirate^H^H^H^H^H^Htransportation service when you have DRMs constantly locking you out of your shipments or dialog boxes checking, double checking and triple checking whether you want to fire the gun because that requires administrative access. It may be that simply being a power user is enough, but sometimes you just have to drop the device and turn it back on again, and power users shouldn't be able to do that!
posted by : goodb0fh, 28 May 2008

Cylon religion is to blame

Apparently, the Cylon believe in only one Vole. XP, figuratively, then should be interpreted as an old testament.
Perhaps the final fifth model is Steve Ballmer, as it is claimed that the final five have been to, or come from, earth.
Since Vista is clearly not finished, perhaps it is to be messianically cannonized to the Cylon in the future.
On Galactica, given the amount of home brew, I'd say that the fleet was Open Sauced. The hybrid, also, clearly imbibes in bathtub gin, and evidently, takes her queues from The INQUIRER. So The INQUIRER and the Vole, seem to be contraposed...
"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief."
At this point in mankind's history, it is just impossible to judge who is which.
posted by : â‚­arlsbad, 28 May 2008

Newer version of Windows

Microsoft have shipped a more recent version of Windows in 2517, but the Cylons were smart enough to get XP installed on their new Dell machines and opt for the upgrade on DVD.
posted by : Dave, 28 May 2008

Stumped

what really stumps me is the fact that you can't place Galactica in Earth's timeline, so you don't know if in 3000 years from now Cylons will *still* be using XP or whether XP was developed thousands of years in our past. Either way... that's bad news.
posted by : Jean Chevreuil, 28 May 2008
IThound
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