[Info-vax] [OT] Early 64-bit test build of Windows 2000 for Alpha found

[John Dallman]

In article <u4fnn3$25v19$1 at dont-email.me>,
clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP (Simon Clubley) wrote:
> On 2023-05-19, John Dallman <jgd at cix.co.uk> wrote:
> > I think it was already too late by 1988. Such an OS would have 
> > had to have supported C and C++ for software portability. Microsoft 
> > would have had to implement any new language, but must have wanted
> > to get on with Windows NT. Also, their developers already knew C/C++
> > and they really weren't very security-conscious in those days.
> 
> DEC had already thrashed out many of those issues by then for 
> PRISM, if not fully implemented them before it was cancelled
> (according to the public material on PRISM).
> 
> You may find the following memo from the time
> interesting:

Yup. I've seen that. Dave Cutler and his team brought ideas to Microsoft,
but no implementations AFAIK. Microsoft are always very ready to believe
that their way of doing things is correct, and likely would have regarded
PILLAR or any other safer language as a distraction. 

A friend of mine was working for IBM on OS/2 at the time, and they felt
that microsoft were a bunch of cowboys, taking no care and accepting
anything that worked. The falling-out was more or less inevitable. 

John