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Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story (1998)

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Re: Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story (1998)

#41

Post by WorldMaker »

dblohm7 wrote: post #38
WorldMaker wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems just the opposite to me. The Windows Subsystem for Linux seems a testament to the NT Kernel and its deliberate approach from nearly three decades ago. Designed originally to support Win32, POSIX, and OS/2 frontends, for a long time it only ever really needed to exercise one of those things. Now it has the best POSIX layer it has ever had, focusing on byte-for-byte compatibility with binaries targeting the Li…

I don't think we'll ever see Win32 retired. .NET and UWP aren't distinct subsystems; they run atop Win32.

Sure, there will always be legacy Win32 apps. I work with too many VB6 applications to be more optimistic about that.

UWP is closer to being a distinct subsystem than "running atop Win32". Though it isn't an official subsystem, it has some of the hallmarks of one (and that was one of the complaints about Windows 8). They've been successfully blurring the lines between UWP and Win32 since Windows 8, but it's also not entirely accurate to state that UWP "runs atop Win32". (The old .NET Framework does, yes, but I didn't mention the .NET Framework, I mentioned UWP.)

If anything, with increasingly more of the Windows Shell moving to UWP, it may even start to be increasingly the case that it is Win32 running atop UWP.

Re: Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story (1998)

#42

Post by michrassena »

michrassena wrote: post #27
dboreham wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a couple of VAXStations on eBay in 2004 with the idea to preserve the "VMS experience". I got one of them up and running with the then current VMS version, and connected to the Internet. They're still sitting in my office, not powered on in 14 years.

I have two VS 3100s that I keep intending to install VMS on. I used VMS in my first year of college, and there's been nothing quite like the versioning file system to come along since.

Just a note for those unfamiliar with this hardware, the VaxStation 3100 38 (the model I own) was produced in 1989. My configuration has 24MB of memory (Max was 32MB). The 32-bit CISC processor runs at 16Mhz. I don't know how it compares to contemporary workstations, like those from Sun or SGI, but compared to PCs at the time it was much more powerful. These workstations must have cost tens of thousands when new. I bought mine for $10 each at least 15 years ago, sans hard drive.

Re: Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story (1998)

#43

Post by pjungwir »

EamonnMR wrote: post #3

For a detailed account, there's always _Show Stopper!_ by G. Pascal Zachary which is a shot at writing a _Soul of the new Machine_ style book about Microsoft during the creation of NT. If that sort of story entertains you, I recommend it.

Can someone tell me what is so great about SotNM? (It even won a Pulitzer.) I read a bunch of computer history books last year, and these were all more interesting IMO:

- John Gernter, The Idea Factory

- T.R. Reid, The Chip

- Stephen Levy, Hackers

- Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, Where Wizards Stay Up Late

- Michael Hiltzik, Dealers of Lightning

- Susan Lammers, Programmers at Work

(Actually I read Levy & Lammers a long time ago, but they're both better than SotNM too.)

Those were full of themes like patents and broad use of technology, interaction between government and private enterprise, monopolies, private research institutes and the need for profit, challenges commercializing your discoveries, the culture around early computer use, etc. They had profiles of famous computer pioneers. They told the history of tech I use every day.

SotNM didn't have anyone I recognized and was about a machine I'd never heard of before. Its biggest theme was how overworked the engineers were (also present in those other books, but not as dominant), at the cost of their health and marriages, with little-to-no reward. It was monotonous and depressing.

So what did other people appreciate about it? With books I don't expect to always "see" everything there on my own, so maybe someone can help me learn what I'm missing.

Re: Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story (1998)

#44

Post by cpeterso »

dblohm7 wrote: post #37
cpeterso wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're interested in the design and implemention of the NT kernel, check out David Solomon's Inside Windows NT . The book's technical level is roughly at that of an undergraduate class on operating systems, going a little deeper than this article.

Note that the latest editions of that book are now named Windows Internals, if you want to read about more recent developments.

I guess my edition is rather old. The cover says it "includes pre-release information about Windows NT 5.0" (before it was renamed Windows 2000). :)

Re: Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story (1998)

#45

Post by yuhong »

saul_goodman wrote: post #40

"Microsoft's internal project name for the new OS was OS/2 NT, because Microsoft's intention was for the new OS to succeed OS/2 yet retain the OS/2 API as its primary interface." Right... There's another reason why it was originally called OS/2 NT: IBM had hired Microsoft to co-develop OS/2 with them before Windows NT development had begun (as early as 1985). The reason for a resemblence to OS/2 with the name and API…

The OS/2 2.0 debacle is one of my favorite topics, BTW.

Re: Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story (1998)

#46

Post by qplex »

WorldMaker wrote: post #36
EdSharkey wrote: post #33

I wonder how relevant the NT kernel is nowadays. My impression is the kernel as a foundation is that it is a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, the windows structures atop it are eternally collapsing and rotted in parts. With the introduction of the windows subsystem for linux, the whole edifice is coming down, threatening to bury the NT kernel and render it obsolete. It seems Microsoft has capitulated and competition h…

It seems just the opposite to me. The Windows Subsystem for Linux seems a testament to the NT Kernel and its deliberate approach from nearly three decades ago. Designed originally to support Win32, POSIX, and OS/2 frontends, for a long time it only ever really needed to exercise one of those things. Now it has the best POSIX layer it has ever had, focusing on byte-for-byte compatibility with binaries targeting the Li…

>than most other kernels could dream of

Except Linux.

Re: Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story (1998)

#47

Post by rpiguy »

What I find interesting is that PC-DOS (MS-DOS) was also a mostly clean room copy of CP/M.

The guy who wrote it before Microsoft acquired it literally went through a CP/M programming manual and recreated the system calls for x86, changing a name here or there.

Neat parallel to how NT doesn't copy any VMS code, but still essentially copies VMS in several aspects.

Re: Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story (1998)

#48

Post by EdSharkey »

WorldMaker wrote: post #36
EdSharkey wrote: post #33

I wonder how relevant the NT kernel is nowadays. My impression is the kernel as a foundation is that it is a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, the windows structures atop it are eternally collapsing and rotted in parts. With the introduction of the windows subsystem for linux, the whole edifice is coming down, threatening to bury the NT kernel and render it obsolete. It seems Microsoft has capitulated and competition h…

It seems just the opposite to me. The Windows Subsystem for Linux seems a testament to the NT Kernel and its deliberate approach from nearly three decades ago. Designed originally to support Win32, POSIX, and OS/2 frontends, for a long time it only ever really needed to exercise one of those things. Now it has the best POSIX layer it has ever had, focusing on byte-for-byte compatibility with binaries targeting the Li…

> If the NT Kernel is "Doing Linux better than Linux", that's a fascinating statement, because the NT Kernel is also running Win32, UWP, and all of its own chores at the same time. What's the Linux kernel doing? ;P

Microsoft, the former juggernaut, would say "Linux, who?", and then proceed to throw their sales and marketing weight around.

> a testament to the underlying NT kernel, because the NT kernel doesn't care, it's still chugging along doing its thing and doing it well.

It must be advantageous for Microsoft, at least in the short-term, to open themselves up and decrease friction between themselves and the Linux community, especially on the server-side where Linux won, than to innovate and compete on Microsoft-centric features and functions - to create something new that's more compelling.

Also, Microsoft risks seeding their own destruction when they create compelling new technologies like XMLHttpRequest that, once appropriated by their competition, reduces the compelling nature of any other technologies Microsoft created for platform lock-in. I can understand innovation fatigue setting in for management when they have enough institutional XMLHttpRequest stories to go along with the endless failed software project investments and evaporating markets.

I assign meaning to the decisions and directions that individuals and companies take. Microsoft paved a gilded path for application development that points AWAY from the Windows platform. Yes, there is novelty and a definite technical achievement there that one can appreciate. But I choose to focus on the motives rather than the technical achievement, and I am disturbed by what I perceive is Microsoft's capitulation in the consumer software/platform arena.

If Microsoft is soon to be the SAAS and Cloud company and not the Windows/Office company, then the software world is worse-off because competition is good.

Re: Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story (1998)

#49

Post by wazoox »

beefhash wrote: post #32
vt240 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember messing around with that ages ago. I wonder if any of the contributors ended up working with VMS Software on the port. It looks, from their site, like they are getting close.

> It looks, from their site, like they are getting close. Does it? It looks to me that the last commit was almost five years ago[1]. [1] http://www.freevms.net/gitweb/?p=FreeVMS.git;a=summary

Yeah, but maybe a little spark of interest could re-lit the flame :)

Re: Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story (1998)

#50

Post by rodgerd »

swagtricker wrote: post #12
atombender wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't. NT was built from scratch.

Written from scratch? Maybe. But they sure as hell didn't get it done without stealing some key "recipe ideas" from VMS.

So once you've worked on a problem once, your brain belongs to that employer forever?
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