2 ms·
NT had an OS/2 personality but Cutler's team didn't "complete" OS/2. They built a new OS from scratch, with some inspiration from the work they had done at DEC
by cmrdporcupine 3y ago
NT had an OS/2 personality but Cutler's team didn't "complete" OS/2. They built a new OS from scratch, with some inspiration from the work they had done at DEC before coming to MS.
My recollection from interview was ... he didn't like it (OS/2), and built their own OS arch from scratch but with some OS/2 back-compat to fulfill contractual obligations.
- flomo 3y agoCorrect, the NT kernel etc has nothing to do with OS/2. But they raided OS/2 for parts: LAN Manager was ported over ("Windows networking"), OS/2 1.3 personality, I think NTFS may have been based on HPFS, etc.
- sillywalk 3y agoApparently heavily based on VMS[0] and MICA[1] from DEC. I believe DEC sued because of this Microsoft, but they settled out of court. [0] https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-client/windows-nt-and-vms-rest-story https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-client/windows-nt-and-vms... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_MICA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_MICA
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoThe joke/story is that if you increment each letter in "VMS" by one, you get WNT. That's not where the name comes from, but it's kind of funny.