Windows NT Turns 20 213
An anonymous reader writes with a link to the observation from ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley of Windows NT's 20th birthday (it came out on July 27th, 1993): ""In 1993, Microsoft launched Windows NT 3.1. It was followed up by NT 3.5, 3.51 and 4.0. Microsoft's Windows releases still rely on NT-inspired numbering conventions. Windows 7's build numbers commenced with 6.1; Windows 8's with 6.2; and Windows 8.1 with 6.3." The article also reminds us that "NT's not ancient history, in spite of its age. The NT 'core' is what's inside Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows Phone 8, Windows Azure and the Xbox One.""
NT 3.51 was the best kernel (Score:5, Interesting)
It was originally a pretty good design (Score:5, Interesting)
Originally it was a pretty good design, based on the concepts implemented by DEC's VMS system. It only got butchered later by people who didn't know their stuff as well as the original engineers.
Warts and all, Windows owes it's lineage to VMS and the once mighty DEC.
I've heard there are still places running VMS-based hardware.
Windows NT's name (Score:5, Interesting)
V +1 = W
M + 1 = N
S + 1 = T
Re:DLL nightmare (Score:4, Interesting)
I have yet to experience this DLL nightmare you speak of. I've had way more dependency hell on Linux than anything. Say you find a great program that does exactly what you need. Well the author based it off some obscure library that needs a dozen other dependencies
Fortunately, 'apt-get install great-program' always works for me.
I still don't understand how VMS can be compared to NT. They don't even seem remotely similar.
VMS
WNT
Just as HAL was one step ahead of IBM, Windows NT is one step behind VMS.
Re:I remember the good old days (Score:4, Interesting)
2008 R2 has some nice improvements over 2008, and 2012 has a lot of nice new stuff, but I *hate* that they decided to use the Metro UI for Server 2012. I liked having the Windows Classic theme for 2003/2008. The Metro UI makes it more difficult to get to some basic settings. It's a server, make it simple and straightforward and aesthetics be damned.
Re:OS/2 was better (Score:3, Interesting)
OS/2 1.x was primarily done by IBM using IBM's tools
After v1.0. Microsoft was entirely responsible for the initial releases of OS/2.
the 286, a processor designed by IBM for IBM
Wrong. Intel designed the 80286. IBM (along with other chip makers) made their own version later on.
proof... (Score:2, Interesting)
...that 640k was not enough!
Re:Here's to Kernels (Score:3, Interesting)
Legal drinking age is 18 in Finland (and much of the civilised world, actually. USA is kinda weird. Mind you, allowing driving and drinking at the same time, does that sound like a good idea? Maybe they are right. No, surely not).
No, wait, Linux first release was 1991, that makes it, um, 22. What the heck is wrong with your arithmetic? What do they teach at school these days? Bah. Get off my lawn. (And yes, I did program PDP 11s back in the day. Why do you ask?)