So I have found out that soon some complete hackery I wrote a few years
ago is going to fly. The code runs on an NT system that runs an In
Flight Entertainment system. It bypasses NT security to directly access
hardware. It patches a new hardware board (with new video controller)
to display live video, so the flight attendants can see what the passengers
see.
Its a kludge. We couldn't build the original software, which was a mess,
and incomplete. So my kludge looks for a big black box on the screen and
maps live video into that space, if it exists. We do so cleverly so as
not to use too much of the 100 Mhz x86 cpu. The software runs in parallel
with the regular software which no longer controls the video overlay.
And finally, after 3 years, it will fly, and enable the company to sell
the boards that have had enormous amounts of time and effort put into
them.
Please put your trays in their upright position..
