[Info-vax] Dave Cutler, Prism, DEC, Microsoft, etc.

[Neil Rieck]

On Nov 7, 9:27 pm, Arne Vajhøj <a... at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> Neil Rieck wrote:
> > Since any idiot can put up a web page these days, you know it all
> > can't be true. So imagine my surprise when I bumped into this:
>
> >http://radsoft.net/rants/20040831,00.shtml
>
> > <quote>Dave always wanted to rewrite VMS in C. He hated Unix but loved
> > C. As soon as he'd finished VMS he suggested the rewrite. He was
> > turned down flat. Several years later he found himself in Seattle and
> > essentially was doing the rewrite in C when word came DEC were tired
> > of him.</quote>
>
> > This article contains lots of other (possibly) questionable facts, but
> > think about the statement above "rewrite VMS in C". If this had
> > happened, we would have VMS or OpenVMS on any platform including
> > x86-64
>
> If the various owners of VMS had believed in the market for
> VMS/x86-64, then I don't think getting Bliss and Macro-32 for
> x86-64 would have been the showstopper. My guess is that it
> would have been a small part of the overall project. Porting
> an OS to a new platform is more than just building the
> source code.
>
> Arne

True, but if Cutler wanted to immediately write VMS in C then I'm
thinking he must had a good reason for it. We all know that UNIX
enjoyed an immediate debugging when it was first rewritten from
assembler to "C". I wonder (in hindsight) if all these secondary and
tertiary components (like BLISS and MACRO) might be an indication of
too many chefs in the VMS kitchen :-)

NSR