[Info-vax] OT: Arun Kishan

[Neil Rieck]

On Jan 13, 8:02 am, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam... at vaxination.ca> wrote:
> Neil Rieck wrote:
> > Trying to replace the "Cutler is God" myth with "Windows is OpenVMS
> > Reimplemented" fact. Don't believe me? Then watch the Rob Short video:
>
> My old PSION PDA (circa early 1990s) had many features similar to VMS.
> It had the equivalent to mailboxes for interprocess communications, it
> had a DECNET like stack where you could remotely start tasks a d
> exchange data, and you could , on the PSION, edit files residing on
> another machine.  Priorities were similar as well (any priorty above 16
> got "real time" like stuff.
>
> And there were rumours that a number of PSION engineers had come from
> DEC (Reading).
>
> Does that make the PDA a "VMS re-implemented ?".
>
> There are certain core concepts in an OS which are fairly common.
>
> Windows doesn't have commonality iwt the VMS file system, it doesn'T
> have RMS, it doesn't have clustering, its file specifications are quite
> different, its device names are quite different.
>
> Let me ask you this: Data General was made up of a lot of ex DEC folks.
> Does this mean that AOS-VS was a re-implementation of VMS ? It was quite
> different to the user and system manager, even if some core concepts in
> the kernel might have been similar.
>
> It is an insult to say that Windows is VMS re-implememted.
> Deffectors to Microsoft should not be glorified. People should limit
> themselves to stating that many ex-Digits went on to work at Microsoft.

With all due respect, no one at DEC defected to Microsoft.
Technology people in the know (Gordon Bell, Dave Cutler, just to name
two of many) realized that VAX was at the end of its life so wanted to
move from 32-bit CISC to 64-bit RISC. People with no clue wanted to
build Aquarius (aka VAX 9000) while they were feeding bad advice to
Ken Olsen. So the people at DEC West in Seattle were shut down by the
DEC suits and told to move back to Massachusetts. Culter was so pissed
he gave them all one month paid leave. Rather than move back to
Massachusetts, many discussed the creation of their own computer
consulting company in Seattle. It was around this time that people in
the know at Microsoft got wind of this opportunity and scooped them
up. We all know what happened to VAX 9000.

Any one of us would have gone to Microsoft under similar
circumstances.

NSR