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

[Arne Vajhøj]

Neil Rieck wrote:
> 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.
> 
> 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 :-)

Today OS in C may be the standard.

But back in the mid 70's where the VMS decision were made, then
it was not the standard.

And my understanding is that VMS inherited this from
the PDP-11 OS's.

And when it was decided for them, then C was not available
(at least according to many C was invented to port Unix
to PDP-11).

Arne