[Info-vax] Never Got Used To Those New-Fangled VMS Filename Extensions ...

[Michael S]

On 28 Jul 2024 13:23:16 -0000
kludge at panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

> Michael S  <already5chosen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >On Sun, 28 Jul 2024 02:50:26 -0000 (UTC)
> >Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo at nz.invalid> wrote:
> >  
> >>=20
> >> (And of course Dave Cutler took .EXE along with other VMS-isms with
> >> him to Windows NT, but that=E2=80=99s another story.)
> >>=20  
> >
> >And of course you made it up.
> >Microsoft introduced .exe extension for relocatable executives back
> >in 1982 (MS-DOS 1.25). 6+ years before they hired Cutler and 11 years
> >before shipment of the first Cutler's Microsoft OS.  
> 
> That was Seattle Business Computing whose product was bought out by 
> Microsoft and became MS-DOS.  SBC basically made a quick and dirty
> copy of Gary Kildall's CP/M on the cheap without really understanding
> all the features they were copying.  But one of the things they copied
> well were the file extensions including .EXE for executables.
>

According to my understanding of Wikipedia article, the OS that
Microsoft bought from Seattle Computer Products and that they
published as PC-DOS had no support for relocatable executives. The only
supported format for programs was non-relocatable .com format.
Support for .exe format was added approximately a year later by
Microsoft's programmers, most likely by Mark Zbikowski, who was a young
guy the never worked for Digital Research or for Seattle Computer
Products.

> CP/M itself was modelled after RT-11 which is where Kildall got the
> idea for the .EXE extension.
> --scott
> >
> >
> >  
> 
>