5 ms·

Microsoft hired Dave Cutler to develop WinNT. Prior to that, he worked on VMS.

by zvrba 2y ago

shrubble 2y ago
DEC sued Microsoft once they read the Windows NT Internals documentation, due to its similarity with VMS : https://www.techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat https://www.techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_i...
- ssrc 2y ago
  Yep, if you have in one hand "Inside Windows NT" by Helen Custer (or one of its successors, "Windows Internals"[0]) and on the other "VMS Internals and Data Structures"[1]... [0]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/resources/windows-internals https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/resources/win... [1]: https://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/vms/training/ https://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/vms/training/
matrix12 2y ago
VMS++ == WNT
- CRConrad 2y ago
  I still can't make my mind up as to whether that's an in-joke or just coinkydink.
lproven 2y ago
That's getting cause and effect back to front. DEC cancelled Cutler's pet projects Mica and Prism, a 64-bit RISC chip and a portable multi-personality next-gen OS to run on it. He was upset. Ripe for head-hunting. MS did so, but he insisted on bringing his core team. MS did not know what to do with him and put the team to work on some corner of LAN Manager. Then Windows 3.0 was a hit, which led to IBM and Microsoft divorcing. IBM kept OS/2 1.x (16-bit, for the '286) and OS/2 2.x (32-bit, for the '386). Microsoft got OS/2 3.x, a planned CPU-independent portable OS. It was working on it on Intel's RISC chip, the i860, codenamed N-Ten. The OS was named after it: OS/2 NT. Then, with Windows now suddenly a big deal, getting a next-gen Windows working was suddenly a big urgent issue. Cutler got the job: finish OS/2 NT and make it work. OS/2 NT was renamed Windows NT, and as it was barely a skeleton of an OS, Cutler took a lot of the design of Mica -- the cancelled next-gen VMS -- and built NT around that. DEC found out and sued, and DEC got very sweet deals on NT and Exchange and things as a result. (Compaq totally blew this and died as a result. It deserved worse.) DEC also salvaged the Prism project and it was launched as DEC Alpha, the first 64-bit RISC chip. Alpha was the first 64-bit platform NT ran on, and it was also the first non-x86 platform Linux ran on.
- sillywalk 2y ago
  > Alpha was the first 64-bit platform NT ran on Interestingly enough, NT used the Alpha as a 32 bit processor[0]. Although NT on Alpha was used to port Windows to 64 bits in lieu of using the (very slow) Itanium simulator[1]. Actually, this was discussed on HN earlier[2], and I believe you wrote an article for The Register[3] about it :) [0] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170823-00/?p=96875 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170823-00/?p=96... [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/technet-magazine/cc718978(v=msdn.10) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/technet-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35949245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35949245 [3] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/19/first_64bit_windows/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/19/first_64bit_windows/
  - lproven 2y ago
    > I believe you wrote an article for The Register[3] about it :) Yep, that was me and what I had in mind. Shipping versions of NT on Alpha were all 32-bit, yes, but there was an internal unreleased 64-bit build.
mtkd 2y ago
It might be the Showstopper book or similar one, but I seem to remember Cutler's core team on NT was less than 10 devs

Microsoft hired Dave Cutler to develop WinNT. Prior to that, he worked on VMS.

by zvrba 2y ago

Microsoft hired Dave Cutler to develop WinNT. Prior to that, he worked on VMS.

DEC sued Microsoft once they read the Windows NT Internals documentation, due to its similarity with VMS : https://www.techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat https://www.techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_i...

ssrc 2y ago
Yep, if you have in one hand "Inside Windows NT" by Helen Custer (or one of its successors, "Windows Internals"[0]) and on the other "VMS Internals and Data Structures"[1]... [0]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/resources/windows-internals https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/resources/win... [1]: https://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/vms/training/ https://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/vms/training/

matrix12 2y ago

VMS++ == WNT

CRConrad 2y ago
I still can't make my mind up as to whether that's an in-joke or just coinkydink.

lproven 2y ago

That's getting cause and effect back to front. DEC cancelled Cutler's pet projects Mica and Prism, a 64-bit RISC chip and a portable multi-personality next-gen OS to run on it. He was upset. Ripe for head-hunting. MS did so, but he insisted on bringing his core team. MS did not know what to do with him and put the team to work on some corner of LAN Manager. Then Windows 3.0 was a hit, which led to IBM and Microsoft divorcing. IBM kept OS/2 1.x (16-bit, for the '286) and OS/2 2.x (32-bit, for the '386). Microsoft got OS/2 3.x, a planned CPU-independent portable OS. It was working on it on Intel's RISC chip, the i860, codenamed N-Ten. The OS was named after it: OS/2 NT. Then, with Windows now suddenly a big deal, getting a next-gen Windows working was suddenly a big urgent issue. Cutler got the job: finish OS/2 NT and make it work. OS/2 NT was renamed Windows NT, and as it was barely a skeleton of an OS, Cutler took a lot of the design of Mica -- the cancelled next-gen VMS -- and built NT around that. DEC found out and sued, and DEC got very sweet deals on NT and Exchange and things as a result. (Compaq totally blew this and died as a result. It deserved worse.) DEC also salvaged the Prism project and it was launched as DEC Alpha, the first 64-bit RISC chip. Alpha was the first 64-bit platform NT ran on, and it was also the first non-x86 platform Linux ran on.

sillywalk 2y ago
> Alpha was the first 64-bit platform NT ran on Interestingly enough, NT used the Alpha as a 32 bit processor[0]. Although NT on Alpha was used to port Windows to 64 bits in lieu of using the (very slow) Itanium simulator[1]. Actually, this was discussed on HN earlier[2], and I believe you wrote an article for The Register[3] about it :) [0] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170823-00/?p=96875 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170823-00/?p=96... [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/technet-magazine/cc718978(v=msdn.10) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/technet-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35949245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35949245 [3] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/19/first_64bit_windows/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/19/first_64bit_windows/
- lproven 2y ago
  > I believe you wrote an article for The Register[3] about it :) Yep, that was me and what I had in mind. Shipping versions of NT on Alpha were all 32-bit, yes, but there was an internal unreleased 64-bit build.

mtkd 2y ago

It might be the Showstopper book or similar one, but I seem to remember Cutler's core team on NT was less than 10 devs