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If you want to hear the history of [DEC/VMS] NT from the horses mouth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE

• usr1106 2y ago
  Oh oh, 3 hours 10. I watched around half of it. The VMS --> WNT acronym relationship was not mentioned, maybe it was just made up later. One thing I did not know (or maybe not remember) is that NT was originally developed exclusively for the Intel i860, one of Intel's attempts to do RISC. Of course in the late 1980s CISC seemed deemed and everyone was moving to RISC. The code name of the i860 was N10. So that might well be the inside origin of NT, the marketing name New Technology retrofitted only later.
  • nullindividual 2y ago
    Here's a direct link: https://youtu.be/xi1Lq79mLeE?t=4314 https://youtu.be/xi1Lq79mLeE?t=4314 "New Technology", if you want to search the transcript. Per Dave, marketing did not want to use "NT" for "New Technology" because they thought no one would buy new technology.
    • usr1106 2y ago
      Actually it was not only x86 hardware that was not really planned for the NT kernel, also Windows user space was not the first candidate. Posix and maybe even OS/2 were earlier goals. So the current x86 Windows monoculture came up as an accident because strategically planned new options did not materialize. The user space change should finally debunk the theory that VMS andvances into WNT was a secret plot by the engineers involved. It was probably a coincidence discovered after the fact.