I am a Noob in that area.
I’ve been programming and designing industrial controls for 25 years. The way most FReepers are latching on to this “Windows blew up the oil rig” story is ridiculous. Sure, Windows has problems, but they have to realize that the people that design this equipment don’t want to see ships explode and people die, so we tend to be over-conservative when we design control systems.
From time to time, a bean-counter will look at the quote for hardware and go to Google and find some $500 “solution” that does “everything that the $20,000 system does”. That’s when I use the scenario described in the original post to make him realize that he doesn’t want some Windows PC directly controlling his machinery.
Also, the vertical water movements are are getting very strong.