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Technically, Cutler started NT on PRISM¹, an ancestor of Alpha, when it was still called Mica. I've never heard of NT for the i960 before. Are you sure you don

by kps 13y ago

Technically, Cutler started NT on PRISM¹, an ancestor of Alpha, when it was still called Mica. I've never heard of NT for the i960 before. Are you sure you don't mean the i860? Very different machines. ¹Not that one, this² one. ²http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Prism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Prism

cpeterso 13y ago
NT originally targeted the Intel i860 (just an emulator, at the time). Intel's codename for the i860 was "N10". Microsoft's "NT" name was an abbreviation of "N Ten". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT#Naming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT#Naming
- kps 13y ago
  That I can believe. Somehow the i860 fits well with Windows in my mind. Though nominally RISCy, it made the mistake later repeated by Itanium: high theoretical performance impossible to achieve in real programs (not to mention interrupt latency long enough for a vacation on Alpha Centauri). The i960, on the other hand, had IMHO a great instruction set (even after losing the capabilities¹), with clean orthogonal 3-address instructions combined with programmer-friendly addressing modes. ¹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_addressing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_addressing
gaius 13y ago
You are correct.