31–40 of 65 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Windows and DOS do have good documents. I actually think they had way better ones than Linux at the time. But I could be wrong. For reference: https://jacobfilipp.com/msj-index/ And also MSDN.
Was MSDN always free? I remember their access prices for the services in the late 90s and early 00s were eyewatering.
The section coding.pdf has their code style guidelines, colloquially known as Cutler Normal Form, CNF for short. I'm conflicted on it. Definitely overly verbose, but you can't argue with the results of the NT team. Such a rigid style guide almost feels like the technical version of a dress code. And there's an idea called "enclothed cognition" which is like, if you wear a business suit to work, it exerts a subconscio…
> The first release of NT is planned as a workstation product that will provide a strong competitor to UN*X based workstations. UN*X spelling for trademark reasons or a joke that UNIX is verboten at Microsoft?
It is a generic way to refer to unix and unix-like systems. It is still in use today, e.g. to indicate Linux as part of the set. For this document most likely it refers to Xenix (MS's unix).
> The first release of NT is planned as a workstation product that will provide a strong competitor to UN*X based workstations. UN*X spelling for trademark reasons or a joke that UNIX is verboten at Microsoft?
IIRC Microsoft's internal email still ran on Xenix at the time (until Exchange betas got good enough for internal use c. 1995?), so perhaps more trademarks than some sort of absolute hatred of Unix. Also note that one of the two APIs that NT OS/2 was initially going to support was POSIX, albeit perhaps more because the US government wanted that than a true love of UNIX. Although the design rationale document (ntdesrt…
It was an email system that ran on top of file system. If I recall, mail clients connected over a networked drive to access mailboxes. So it was never regarded as being very scalable.
"6.1 OS/2 Standards
Our initial OS/2 API set centers around the evolving 32-bit Cruiser, or OS/2 2.0 API set.
(The design of Cruiser APIs is being done in parallel with the NT OS/2 design.) In some respects, this standard is harder to deal with than the POSIX standards. OS/2 is tied to the Intel x86 architecture and these dependencies show up in a number of APIs. Given the nature of OS/2 design (the joint development agreement), we have had little success in influencing the design of the 2.0 APIs so that they are portable and reasonable to implement on non-x86 systems. In addition, the issue of binary compatibility with OS/2 arises when the system is back-ported to an 80386 platform.
This may involve 16-bit as well as 32-bit binary compatibility."
Very "professional" coded writing that expresses a frustration with the need to collaborate with IBM that could have been more succinctly written if they had the option to use a few choice four letter words.
The section coding.pdf has their code style guidelines, colloquially known as Cutler Normal Form, CNF for short. I'm conflicted on it. Definitely overly verbose, but you can't argue with the results of the NT team. Such a rigid style guide almost feels like the technical version of a dress code. And there's an idea called "enclothed cognition" which is like, if you wear a business suit to work, it exerts a subconscio…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Windows and DOS do have good documents. I actually think they had way better ones than Linux at the time. But I could be wrong. For reference: https://jacobfilipp.com/msj-index/ And also MSDN.
Was MSDN always free? I remember their access prices for the services in the late 90s and early 00s were eyewatering.
If you just wanted to do c++ windows programming you can get visual studio which, I believe, did come with Win32 documentation (especially as CD roms became common distro methods).
The c++ software development kit itself (just libraries, documentation, and samples, no tooling) wasn't too expensive and was mainly material costs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIRC Microsoft's internal email still ran on Xenix at the time (until Exchange betas got good enough for internal use c. 1995?), so perhaps more trademarks than some sort of absolute hatred of Unix. Also note that one of the two APIs that NT OS/2 was initially going to support was POSIX, albeit perhaps more because the US government wanted that than a true love of UNIX. Although the design rationale document (ntdesrt…
Did Microsoft never run Microsoft Mail internally? It was an email system that ran on top of file system. If I recall, mail clients connected over a networked drive to access mailboxes. So it was never regarded as being very scalable.
The Workgroup Apps (WGA) divison ran MS Mail for PC Networks since they produced MS Mail. Gotta dogfood your product. The WGA email system used a Xenix gateway to connect with the rest of Microsoft.
The rest of Microsoft ran MS Mail for Windows with a Xenix email backend and address book, since MS was already using Xenix before MS Mail for PC Networks existed.
Windows for Workgroups 3.11 contained a one postoffice-version of MSMail, (which could be upgraded to the full version).
Some more Microsoft email-related history at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Exchange_...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or IBM? z/OS is officially a Unix
There are an awful lot of iOS and macOS devices out there
—