Re: OT: VMS / WNT [was: Re: Official Exim 4 package]
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On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 12:31:06PM -0500, Mark L. Kahnt waxed eloquent and said:
> On Tue, 2003-03-25 at 15:36, Pigeon wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 25, 2003 at 12:08:40PM -0500, Mark L. Kahnt wrote:
> > > Windows 5 (XP, 2000) is based on the "now" 32-bit kernel (morphed
> > > from a mix of Windows 3, OS/2 and Vax code.)
> >
> > The so-called NT kernel? *Vax* code? Does that mean the jokes
> > concerning "Windows NT - WNT - one shift along from VMS" have
> > some substance? I thought they were based on the cyberspace version of
> > a urban legend. (Would that be "cyberpolitan legend"?)
> >
> > Pigeon
>
> Heavens yes - Microsoft had no experience with the quality of
> multitasking and memory management necessary for their vision of NT, and
> didn't *really* want to use the IBM code from OS/2, and as part of the
> agreement to have an Alpha version of NT (remember, when it was first
> created, it was supposed to work on not just Intel, but MIPS and Alpha,
> and even on PowerPC for a stretch,) they got DEC input from the VAX team
> on that range of functionality.
Some extracts from http://web.cuug.ab.ca/~leblancj/nt_to_unix.html may
be pertinent here:
Engineers and developers recruited from Digital Equipment Corporation
(DEC) brought excellent VMS-based expertise into the Microsoft fold.
Dave Cutler, considered the "father" of NT and perhaps the key developer
of DEC's VMS OS, had been working at DEC on a new OS, code-named "Mica",
meant to be a successor to VMS. DEC's highest management were troubled
that Cutler was approaching the design from a hardware platform-neutral
operating stance. Central to the Mica design was the concept of the
"Hardware Abstraction Layer" (HAL) that offered a uniform software
platform regardless of the underlying computer machinery. In retrospect,
and somewhat ironically, HAL was a foreshadowing of Sun's Java platform,
which has as its main goal the equal functioning across disparate
hardware architectures and which Microsoft has fought an ongoing crusade
against. Doubly ironically, in a feat of twisted logic, Microsoft has
subsequently cloned Java into their own "C#" platform (a crippled
Java-clone running only on Microsoft Windows).
DEC executives, worrying that their proprietary hardware-derived revenue
would suffer as Mica was potentially adapted by non-DEC hardware
vendors, terminated the Mica project. Cutler, now adrift, was quickly
integrated into Microsoft and began work on the Windows NT project in
1988. Amid suspicions of intellectual property theft, DEC eventually
sued Microsoft, citing that Cutler and his Mica team had actually
continued the same project within Microsoft, culminating in the birth of
the Windows NT OS. After Microsoft settled the case with DEC for $150
million, inside sources alleged that large quantities of NT's code (and
even most of the programmer's comments) were identical to Mica's.
Sam
- --
Sam Varghese
http://www.gnubies.com
Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.
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