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

[Neil Rieck]

I just finished the book “Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to Create
Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft” and found it a
riveting description of the activities of Cutler and other DEC people
at Microsoft. Here are two final extracts you may find amusing.

P 179: Digital Equipment, his (Cutler's) former employer and current
nemesis, agreed to become the first computer maker to buy NT for the
purpose of porting, or adapting, it to computers powered bu Digital's
own microchip, called Alpha. The very people assigned to do the port
were some of Cutler's old employees at Digital West. Cutler exulted,
"Digital's management ran me out of the company" he said, "and a mere
four years later they knocked on my door." Cutler saw the Mica
operating system , whose cancellation by Digital prompted his
departure, as a rough equivalent of NT. "Digital is now paying for
something they could have had for free".

P 179.  But some Digital people privately agreed that Culter's
departure still ranlked top executive and the Digital's adoption of NT
was tantamount to admitting a mistake. "Driving asway Culter was one
of the dumbest f*ck*ng things Digital ever did", on person said. "But
we can't say we screwed up because some of the idiots responsible for
that are still here".

P 266. Windows-NT (version 1.0) was build from 5.6 million lines of
code

Neil Rieck
Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/