4 ms·

You may need therapy if it saddens you to see Microsoft port its OS to non-Intel chips, like they used to do with NT. Who else is going drive change away from t

by akadien 16y ago

You may need therapy if it saddens you to see Microsoft port its OS to non-Intel chips, like they used to do with NT. Who else is going drive change away from the x86 ISA?

pohl 16y ago
People keep mentioning non-x86 ports of NT in the context of yesterday's news, but I think a more nuanced recollection of history may be in order. There's one very important apparent difference between the move to support ARM and those old NT-on-RISC ports of yore: Microsoft never, for even a microsecond, took those ports seriously. They were brought into being for the sole purpose of creating uncertainty in the unix market to slow enterprise adoption of Unix on those exotic RISC architectures. NT, recall, was supposed to be "a better unix than unix" in those days. As soon as that move succeeded in neutralizing the competition, those ports became legacy. By all appearances, on the other hand, the port to ARM appears to be intended for actual consumers — that is, not merely to freeze a market, but to enter one.
- CoreyH144 16y ago
  This is not really a fair recollection of the events. Things like NT for Alpha were not successful not because MS wasn't "serious" about it, but just by the fact that it didn't sell. Those architectures just weren't commercially viable. The products themselves were basically the same (and impervious to not being "serious") because of the investment they made in maintaining a microkernel that wasn't tied to x86.
  - iuguy 16y ago
    This is closer to the mark. I remember rebuilding an NT 4.0 server on x86 after Microsoft dropped Service Pack support for Mips after SP1. We'd been sold a right lemon by the vendor who obviously must've known that about 3 months after NT4 ships Microsoft announced they were dropping MIPS. In the end, instead of buying more expensive IRIX kit or facing the political fallout from going back to Novell my then employer decided to grit teeth and go x86/NT4.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > that is, not merely to freeze a market, but to enter one I would be more inclined to believe that if Windows 8 on ARM had, at least, an announced shipping date. As it is now, I increasingly believe Microsoft saw the threat Android on higher-performance flavors of ARM represents to Windows on x86 and decided to create some confusion by announcing Windows 8 would support it. I have to admit they being able to actually demo it, along with Office, with credible performance surprised me. They sure came a long way since the NT on RISC of the mid-90's. However, Windows 8 is, at least, a year away. Does it mean these products that were demoed will not ship before Windows is ready? I could run Linux on them by next week.
rbanffy 16y ago
> You may need therapy if it saddens you to see Microsoft port its OS to non-Intel chips, like they used to do with NT I would prefer some other player, like Android and the Linux ecosystem it piggybacks on, to do it. As for the therapy, I have long ago realized I just don't like the Microsoft Way Of Doing Things. The fact they have abused their monopoly to actually prevent the market from progressing away from the x86 ISA doesn't help either.

by akadien 16y ago

You may need therapy if it saddens you to see Microsoft port its OS to non-Intel chips, like they used to do with NT. Who else is going drive change away from the x86 ISA?

pohl 16y ago

People keep mentioning non-x86 ports of NT in the context of yesterday's news, but I think a more nuanced recollection of history may be in order. There's one very important apparent difference between the move to support ARM and those old NT-on-RISC ports of yore: Microsoft never, for even a microsecond, took those ports seriously. They were brought into being for the sole purpose of creating uncertainty in the unix market to slow enterprise adoption of Unix on those exotic RISC architectures. NT, recall, was supposed to be "a better unix than unix" in those days. As soon as that move succeeded in neutralizing the competition, those ports became legacy. By all appearances, on the other hand, the port to ARM appears to be intended for actual consumers — that is, not merely to freeze a market, but to enter one.

CoreyH144 16y ago
This is not really a fair recollection of the events. Things like NT for Alpha were not successful not because MS wasn't "serious" about it, but just by the fact that it didn't sell. Those architectures just weren't commercially viable. The products themselves were basically the same (and impervious to not being "serious") because of the investment they made in maintaining a microkernel that wasn't tied to x86.
- iuguy 16y ago
  This is closer to the mark. I remember rebuilding an NT 4.0 server on x86 after Microsoft dropped Service Pack support for Mips after SP1. We'd been sold a right lemon by the vendor who obviously must've known that about 3 months after NT4 ships Microsoft announced they were dropping MIPS. In the end, instead of buying more expensive IRIX kit or facing the political fallout from going back to Novell my then employer decided to grit teeth and go x86/NT4.
rbanffy 16y ago
> that is, not merely to freeze a market, but to enter one I would be more inclined to believe that if Windows 8 on ARM had, at least, an announced shipping date. As it is now, I increasingly believe Microsoft saw the threat Android on higher-performance flavors of ARM represents to Windows on x86 and decided to create some confusion by announcing Windows 8 would support it. I have to admit they being able to actually demo it, along with Office, with credible performance surprised me. They sure came a long way since the NT on RISC of the mid-90's. However, Windows 8 is, at least, a year away. Does it mean these products that were demoed will not ship before Windows is ready? I could run Linux on them by next week.

rbanffy 16y ago

> You may need therapy if it saddens you to see Microsoft port its OS to non-Intel chips, like they used to do with NT I would prefer some other player, like Android and the Linux ecosystem it piggybacks on, to do it. As for the therapy, I have long ago realized I just don't like the Microsoft Way Of Doing Things. The fact they have abused their monopoly to actually prevent the market from progressing away from the x86 ISA doesn't help either.