diff --git a/extra/system-info/linux/linux.factor b/extra/system-info/linux/linux.factor
index b77e1fe649..8a943927c7 100644
--- a/extra/system-info/linux/linux.factor
+++ b/extra/system-info/linux/linux.factor
@@ -1,14 +1,15 @@
 ! Copyright (C) 2008 Doug Coleman.
 ! See http://factorcode.org/license.txt for BSD license.
 USING: unix alien alien.c-types kernel math sequences strings
-io.backend.unix splitting io.encodings.utf8 io.encodings.string ;
+io.backend.unix splitting io.encodings.utf8 io.encodings.string
+specialized-arrays.char ;
 IN: system-info.linux
 
 : (uname) ( buf -- int )
     "int" f "uname" { "char*" } alien-invoke ;
 
 : uname ( -- seq )
-    65536 "char" <c-array> [ (uname) io-error ] keep
+    65536 <char-array> [ (uname) io-error ] keep
     "\0" split harvest [ utf8 decode ] map
     6 "" pad-tail ;
 
diff --git a/extra/system-info/windows/windows.factor b/extra/system-info/windows/windows.factor
index e68f6ce62f..acbe668c7a 100755
--- a/extra/system-info/windows/windows.factor
+++ b/extra/system-info/windows/windows.factor
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 USING: alien alien.c-types classes.struct accessors kernel
 math namespaces windows windows.kernel32 windows.advapi32 words
 combinators vocabs.loader system-info.backend system
-alien.strings windows.errors ;
+alien.strings windows.errors specialized-arrays.ushort ;
 IN: system-info.windows
 
 : system-info ( -- SYSTEM_INFO )
@@ -49,11 +49,8 @@ IN: system-info.windows
 : sse3? ( -- ? )
     PF_SSE3_INSTRUCTIONS_AVAILABLE feature-present? ;
 
-: <u16-string-object> ( n -- obj )
-    "ushort" <c-array> ;
-
 : get-directory ( word -- str )
-    [ MAX_UNICODE_PATH [ <u16-string-object> ] keep dupd ] dip
+    [ MAX_UNICODE_PATH [ <ushort-array> ] keep dupd ] dip
     execute win32-error=0/f alien>native-string ; inline
 
 : windows-directory ( -- str )