On Sat, 22 Sep 2012 07:44:24 -0400, Dave Angel wrote: [...] > Your wording seems to imply that you still think NT was built on some > earlier MS product. It was written from scratch by a team recruited > mostly from outside MS, including the leader, a guy who was I think > experienced in VMS development.
I believe you are thinking of Dave Cutler, who wasn't just experienced in VMS development, he invented VMS. He also helped design the VAX, hated Unix with a passion, and killed off the RSTS operating system. He's now working on the Xbox. Windows NT was one of the reasons the IBM and Microsoft fell out. IBM and Microsoft partnered to build a new generation operating system, OS/2. Microsoft blew through a whole lot of IBM's money, produced something that they called version 1 but was more like version 0.1 (it only did text applications and had no GUI). They did eventually bring out a 1.1 version with a GUI, a year later. As per their partnership agreement, IBM took over development of OS/2 version 2 while Microsoft worked on developing version 3. OS/2 2.0 was significantly improved over the 1.x series. Then Microsoft reneged on the agreement to release OS/2 version 3, and instead re-badged it as Windows NT. One might say there was a little bit of bad blood over this, especially as IBM had good reason to think that Microsoft had been spending IBM's money on NT. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
