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

[P. Sture]

In article <hdh1vd$7fj$1 at usenet01.boi.hp.com>,
 "FredK" <fred.nospam at dec.com> wrote:

> "P. Sture" <paul.nospam at sture.ch> wrote in message 
> news:paul.nospam-97E4EE.21424211112009 at pbook.sture.ch...
> > In article <rqrgf5l0duc5n8247ofodn728nd2gbbld4 at 4ax.com>,
> > jls <notvalid at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sun, 8 Nov 2009 12:31:07 -0600, Paul Raulerson
> >> <paul at raulersons.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> >
> >> >Not to mention that there is at least as much "borrowed" technology
> >> >from UNIX in NT there is from VMS.
> >> >And when you hit Windows XP, there is far more UNIX based technology
> >> >cloned into NT than from VMS.
> >> >
> >> >I have never fully understood this, since in some ways, VMS is clearly
> >> >superior to the contemporary UNIX
> >> >implementations of that time.
> >>
> >> My recollection from that time period is reading a few articles
> >> written in mags from erstwhile VMS Internals experts that NT had VMS
> >> written all over it.
> >>
> >> It may not be so true today, but the earlier versions, IIRC, were so
> >> VMS-ish internally that even some of the code was copied verbatim
> >> (i.e., including comments with the initials of VMS engineers).
> >
> > There was a series of articles in Windows NT Magazine in 1997 exploring
> > NT process and memory management.  I remember thinking that I could have
> > written large chunks of it myself, based purely on VMS knowledge.
> >
> 
> Interesting discussion.
> 
> A couple things.  First is that even when you start with a relatively blank 
> slate, the end results tend to flow from your past work.  The NT kernel is 
> what you would expect as the next generation from someone who had a main 
> role in the RSX and VMS kernels.  You have some fundamentals, you know what 
> worked well, and you know what you would have done better in retrospect.

Very true. Which one of us _hasn't_ used ideas and concepts learnt on 
previous projects, and taken the tried and tested approach?

> In terms of code with "initials of VMS engineers"... I find that a bit 
> suspect, unless of course you remember that a lot of ex-VMS engineers 
> journeyed to DECwest and eventually to Microsoft, like my mentor Rod 
> Gamache.  At the time there was little to no kernel code in VMS written in 
> C.  I'll avoid discussion of the Prism stuff, since while I know some things 
> from interesting people - none of it is anything I could claim as 100% 
> picture of the truth.

That reminds me of a post (possibly back in CompuServe days) where one 
DEC employee on his way home from an interview with MS met another DEC 
employee on his his way to an interview with MS at the airport. The 
comment was "So you too?".  I gather that plenty of DEC folks did end up 
at MS in that period (mid to late 90s).

> Lastly, what most people forget is that NT wasn't designed as the next 
> Windows.  It was designed as a kernel that could host multiple executive 
> environments.  At the time OS2, Windows, and UNIX executives were envisioned 
> and I recall this being talked about during the first NT Developers 
> Conference.  Over time Windows became the focus and the bright line between 
> the kernel and Windows ended up being compromised - IMHO for performance 
> reasons - like the changes in the graphics subsystem.

Thanks. I didn't realise that. Support for the MIPS and Power PC 
platforms as well as Alpha was there in NT4, so it was also 
multi-platform, even if that was short lived in practice.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT#Supported_platforms>

Itanium gets a brief mention there.

-- 
Paul Sture