4 ms·

First ever 64-bit version of Windows rediscovered and a C compiler for it too

96 points by lproven 3y ago

mananaysiempre 3y ago
Discussed a couple of days ago at the original blog link (92 points, 76 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35949245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35949245.
- lproven 3y ago
  Fair point. I submitted this because I wrote it, and in the story, I tried to add context and background that wasn't in the original. Most people read the headline, don't even understand that, and then comment. :-(
  - throwaway2990 3y ago
    > Most people read the headline, don't even understand that, and then comment. :-( Welcome to HN.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - vxNsr 3y ago
      I mean welcome to the internet, you see this happen even on news articles themselves, people will read the headline, scroll to the bottom to comment something that’s explained in the article. For a long time the verge has users who were notorious for this. It got so bad that they had to institute a “summer of chill” where most articles had comments turned off (which was a novel concept at the time).
      - lproven 3y ago
        I'm aware. My primary email is 32 years old now, but I was online 6 years before that.
  - mananaysiempre 3y ago
    It took your article for me to go trawling in the blog’s comments section and realize (some of) the files were actually released[1], not just blogged about, so thanks for that :) [1] https://archive.org/download/splash_20230516 https://archive.org/download/splash_20230516
    - lproven 3y ago
      Oh, good find! I did not spot that either.
karmakaze 3y ago
Not the oldest--we had Win NT 3.x (3.1 I think, maybe 3.5) for the DEC Alpha where I worked.
- fredoralive 3y ago
  The older Alpha versions of Windows were mostly 32 bit even though the Alpha was natively a 64 bit CPU (see https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170823-00/?p=96875 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170823-00/?p=96...). This is a prototype of actual 64 bit Windows, early in development when actual Itanium silicon didn't exist, so they used Alpha as a test target even though Alpha Windows was dead.
  - mananaysiempre 3y ago
    That actually seems fairly interesting and unusual—in Linux terms, Windows NT (and its progeny) started with the moral equivalent of the x32 ABI[1] on its only 64-bit architecture (Alpha) and only afterwards introduced support for true 64-bit apps. Which is very reasonable! [1] https://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/ https://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/
- lproven 3y ago
  Did you RTFA? I wrote it. All released NT versions are 32-bit only.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    > Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ilyt 3y ago
  Running on 64 bit CPU != 64 bit OS
brynet 3y ago
Windows may not have taken advantage of the 64-bit CPU in these machines, but other operating systems of the time certainly did. OpenBSD/alpha was a 64-bit only port (LP64) to the DEC Alpha machines, started in 1996 and remains supported today. OpenBSD/alpha even made several of the early printed CD-ROM releases and can be seen on the cover art. https://www.openbsd.org/alpha.html https://www.openbsd.org/alpha.html https://www.openbsd.org/artwork.html https://www.openbsd.org/artwork.html https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.3/alpha/INSTALL.alpha https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.3/alpha/INSTALL.alpha
tialaramex 3y ago
> in fact, based on the Windows Server 2003 codebase rather than XP per se For a while in the 1990s, Microsoft tried to pretend that "Server" and "Workstation" NT were substantially different. At some point somebody actually worked out which registry key actually matters, and then (though obviously it's unsupported) you could turn a "Workstation" into a "Server" or vice versa, because in fact, just like Linux it turns out an operating system kernel is an operating system kernel, marketing is bullshit, the difference is always just tuning. After that, Microsoft didn't ship "Server" and "Workstation" variants of the exact same code. Instead they'd branch the "Server" and "Workstation" products, under different names, from the same tree at different intervals. Thus this difference is purely about the badge, and presumably they felt that the XP badge was appropriate for this product whereas a "Server" badge would give the wrong impression.
- dboreham 3y ago
  Nobody had to "work this out" because it was widely known and acknowledged by MS since the first AS beta release (1993). The original idea was to sell a product to complete with Novell Netware (at the time the dominant thing you ran on the office file server). If MS made it easy to use the desktop NT as a file server, then they'd be "leaving money on the table" vs what Novell charged for Netware (per-client licensing that meant $thousands for a large server). So they invented a license for clients (CAL) and a product that bundled some number of licenses in the SKU, and AS was born, sold for iirc about $500. Much cheaper than Netware, which subsequently died. Then, to make it harder for customers to simply use the cheaper desktop NT in place of AS, a limit on the number of connected clients was enforced (5?). There were also some kernel tuning parameters that were different between workstation and server. Subsequently, through the 2000, 2003, ... generations, more applications were bundled into the server product (e.g. ActiveDirectory) that were obviously not present in the desktop version.
  - tialaramex 3y ago
    When you say "acknowledged by Microsoft" I notice you don't provide a link or even a quote. There's a big difference between what's obvious to programmers and what you can get fanboys to accept is true about a product they've somehow connected to their self-worth. In my experience the Registry Key made all the difference and of course Microsoft were not publishing "Use this registry key to effectively pirate Windows Server" docs - unless you're claiming they did? Windows 2000 Server is like older NT versions, it's exactly the same actual code as the far cheaper Windows 2000 Professional, whereas Windows Server 2003 was a different branch from the similar XP on the desktop, there was no "Windows Professional 2003" or whatever. The bundling makes it a bit easier for customers to stomach that you're blatantly selling them the exact same product with a different badge for more money, but it's not enough. It wasn't just about Client licenses either. Some Windows "editions" (ie the exact same code with a registry change) had different hardware support. Got 4 CPUs? Can't use them in "professional" edition, you need Server. Got a huge beat with 32 CPUs? Ordinary Server won't work, get yourself Datacenter Server. Same for RAM.
blacklion 3y ago
I've used XP Pro x64 for several years on Pentium D CPU with full 4GiB of memory. It was rather pleasant experience, with one caveat: some desktop software refuses to sun because they detected server OS, and vice versa. But there were not so much so picky software, so it was not a real problem.
- chungy 3y ago
  The "server OS" bit came from software assuming that Windows NT 5.2 would always be Server 2003, and it was an incorrect assumption. If they had instead read the ProductType key and based the SKU lockout on WinNT (home/workstation) or ServerNT (server, obviously), no such issue would have happened. Windows 2000 was always NT 5.0 in both professional and server, such software had to use ProductType instead. Likewise, Windows Vista and Server 2008 are both NT 6.0. XP/Server 2003 is the only time when it deviated, and some 3rd-parties didn't notice the proper way to distinguish between client and server; becoming even worse once XP x64 came out and was actually NT 5.2 (XP 32-bit was NT 5.1).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
634636346 3y ago
Alpha was also the first 64-bit processor Linux supported. AltaVista was originally just a tech demo for Alpha. The homepage, at least early versions, had little "AlphaPowered" graphics on it.
- lproven 3y ago
  [Article author here] This is true but understates the truth. Alpha was the first non-x86 CPU of any kind that Linux supported.
RyJones 3y ago
Pretty cool. I wish copies of \\juliet were available, and whatever was used in the porting lab. \\juliet was a machine rescued from pc-recycle that a co-worker in ITG turned into an "everything" machine for network installs of NT

96 points by lproven 3y ago

Discussed a couple of days ago at the original blog link (92 points, 76 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35949245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35949245.

lproven 3y ago
Fair point. I submitted this because I wrote it, and in the story, I tried to add context and background that wasn't in the original. Most people read the headline, don't even understand that, and then comment. :-(
- throwaway2990 3y ago
  > Most people read the headline, don't even understand that, and then comment. :-( Welcome to HN.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - vxNsr 3y ago
    I mean welcome to the internet, you see this happen even on news articles themselves, people will read the headline, scroll to the bottom to comment something that’s explained in the article. For a long time the verge has users who were notorious for this. It got so bad that they had to institute a “summer of chill” where most articles had comments turned off (which was a novel concept at the time).
    - lproven 3y ago
      I'm aware. My primary email is 32 years old now, but I was online 6 years before that.
- mananaysiempre 3y ago
  It took your article for me to go trawling in the blog’s comments section and realize (some of) the files were actually released[1], not just blogged about, so thanks for that :) [1] https://archive.org/download/splash_20230516 https://archive.org/download/splash_20230516
  - lproven 3y ago
    Oh, good find! I did not spot that either.

karmakaze 3y ago

Not the oldest--we had Win NT 3.x (3.1 I think, maybe 3.5) for the DEC Alpha where I worked.

fredoralive 3y ago
The older Alpha versions of Windows were mostly 32 bit even though the Alpha was natively a 64 bit CPU (see https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170823-00/?p=96875 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170823-00/?p=96...). This is a prototype of actual 64 bit Windows, early in development when actual Itanium silicon didn't exist, so they used Alpha as a test target even though Alpha Windows was dead.
- mananaysiempre 3y ago
  That actually seems fairly interesting and unusual—in Linux terms, Windows NT (and its progeny) started with the moral equivalent of the x32 ABI[1] on its only 64-bit architecture (Alpha) and only afterwards introduced support for true 64-bit apps. Which is very reasonable! [1] https://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/ https://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/
lproven 3y ago
Did you RTFA? I wrote it. All released NT versions are 32-bit only.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ilyt 3y ago
Running on 64 bit CPU != 64 bit OS

brynet 3y ago

Windows may not have taken advantage of the 64-bit CPU in these machines, but other operating systems of the time certainly did. OpenBSD/alpha was a 64-bit only port (LP64) to the DEC Alpha machines, started in 1996 and remains supported today. OpenBSD/alpha even made several of the early printed CD-ROM releases and can be seen on the cover art. https://www.openbsd.org/alpha.html https://www.openbsd.org/alpha.html https://www.openbsd.org/artwork.html https://www.openbsd.org/artwork.html https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.3/alpha/INSTALL.alpha https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/7.3/alpha/INSTALL.alpha

tialaramex 3y ago

> in fact, based on the Windows Server 2003 codebase rather than XP per se For a while in the 1990s, Microsoft tried to pretend that "Server" and "Workstation" NT were substantially different. At some point somebody actually worked out which registry key actually matters, and then (though obviously it's unsupported) you could turn a "Workstation" into a "Server" or vice versa, because in fact, just like Linux it turns out an operating system kernel is an operating system kernel, marketing is bullshit, the difference is always just tuning. After that, Microsoft didn't ship "Server" and "Workstation" variants of the exact same code. Instead they'd branch the "Server" and "Workstation" products, under different names, from the same tree at different intervals. Thus this difference is purely about the badge, and presumably they felt that the XP badge was appropriate for this product whereas a "Server" badge would give the wrong impression.

dboreham 3y ago
Nobody had to "work this out" because it was widely known and acknowledged by MS since the first AS beta release (1993). The original idea was to sell a product to complete with Novell Netware (at the time the dominant thing you ran on the office file server). If MS made it easy to use the desktop NT as a file server, then they'd be "leaving money on the table" vs what Novell charged for Netware (per-client licensing that meant $thousands for a large server). So they invented a license for clients (CAL) and a product that bundled some number of licenses in the SKU, and AS was born, sold for iirc about $500. Much cheaper than Netware, which subsequently died. Then, to make it harder for customers to simply use the cheaper desktop NT in place of AS, a limit on the number of connected clients was enforced (5?). There were also some kernel tuning parameters that were different between workstation and server. Subsequently, through the 2000, 2003, ... generations, more applications were bundled into the server product (e.g. ActiveDirectory) that were obviously not present in the desktop version.
- tialaramex 3y ago
  When you say "acknowledged by Microsoft" I notice you don't provide a link or even a quote. There's a big difference between what's obvious to programmers and what you can get fanboys to accept is true about a product they've somehow connected to their self-worth. In my experience the Registry Key made all the difference and of course Microsoft were not publishing "Use this registry key to effectively pirate Windows Server" docs - unless you're claiming they did? Windows 2000 Server is like older NT versions, it's exactly the same actual code as the far cheaper Windows 2000 Professional, whereas Windows Server 2003 was a different branch from the similar XP on the desktop, there was no "Windows Professional 2003" or whatever. The bundling makes it a bit easier for customers to stomach that you're blatantly selling them the exact same product with a different badge for more money, but it's not enough. It wasn't just about Client licenses either. Some Windows "editions" (ie the exact same code with a registry change) had different hardware support. Got 4 CPUs? Can't use them in "professional" edition, you need Server. Got a huge beat with 32 CPUs? Ordinary Server won't work, get yourself Datacenter Server. Same for RAM.

blacklion 3y ago

I've used XP Pro x64 for several years on Pentium D CPU with full 4GiB of memory. It was rather pleasant experience, with one caveat: some desktop software refuses to sun because they detected server OS, and vice versa. But there were not so much so picky software, so it was not a real problem.

chungy 3y ago
The "server OS" bit came from software assuming that Windows NT 5.2 would always be Server 2003, and it was an incorrect assumption. If they had instead read the ProductType key and based the SKU lockout on WinNT (home/workstation) or ServerNT (server, obviously), no such issue would have happened. Windows 2000 was always NT 5.0 in both professional and server, such software had to use ProductType instead. Likewise, Windows Vista and Server 2008 are both NT 6.0. XP/Server 2003 is the only time when it deviated, and some 3rd-parties didn't notice the proper way to distinguish between client and server; becoming even worse once XP x64 came out and was actually NT 5.2 (XP 32-bit was NT 5.1).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

634636346 3y ago

Alpha was also the first 64-bit processor Linux supported. AltaVista was originally just a tech demo for Alpha. The homepage, at least early versions, had little "AlphaPowered" graphics on it.

lproven 3y ago
[Article author here] This is true but understates the truth. Alpha was the first non-x86 CPU of any kind that Linux supported.

RyJones 3y ago

Pretty cool. I wish copies of \\juliet were available, and whatever was used in the porting lab. \\juliet was a machine rescued from pc-recycle that a co-worker in ITG turned into an "everything" machine for network installs of NT