Last night (whilst on a wild goose chase for affordable pager transmitters; as £300 is a bit steep for a demo system) I ended up reading the tech notes for a signalling unit for most US Police cars. (that makes the siren change from yelp/wail/raspberry/sometimes the “European” nee naws and triggers the blue/red lights as well; it can also relay the communications radio audio through the LS or allow the mic to be used as a PA system.
The company making them has been around longer than myself and actually makes decent kit operating the old skool way – but this new computerised system is based on 20 year old embeedded XP with all sorts of proprietary license lockdowns. Things like that are a disaster in the making.
