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

[Bob Eager]

On Sun, 28 Jul 2024 16:42:17 +0300, Michael S wrote:

> 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.

And the signature at the start of Microsoft .EXE files survives, still 
with MZ - Marks' initials.