Subject: NT history (was: Re: Unix, Win32 & Posix subsystems [was: TeX implementations?])
From: [email-masked] ("Peter N. M. Hansteen")

1 Nov 1996 03:25:07 -0800
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>Actually, there never was an NT 1.0, per se.  NT 1 and 2 were known as
>"Microsoft OS/2".  Because of differences of opinions, MS and IBM split up
>after OS/2 2.x and OS/2 3.0 was an IBM-only thing, and MS's share of the
>code became NT 3.0. Supposedly MS completely rebuilt NT from the ground up,

I know this is off-topic for the list, but anyway:

I remember reading an article infoworld about the time OS/2 1.3 was released
about the future directions for OS/2. It said Microsoft had started work on
a 'portable rewrite' of OS/2, which would be marketed under the name 'OS/2 NT
- NT for New Technology', probably as OS/2 version 3. However, the cooperation
between MS and IBM started deteriorating shortly after the article was printed.
On the other hand, the project to build what was to become NT is rumored to 
have started at DEC, where Dave Cutler (who also was at least partly 
responsible for the VMS OS) came from. Folklore has it that DEC didn't 
believe in the project, and Cutler was allowed to take his team with him
across to Microsoft.

>but I am puzzled by the fact that they introduced it as 3.0 instead of 1.0

3.1 was the first released version. The reason: simple marketing. The other
windows-labeled systems products were at revision level 3.1 at the time.
The other reason is probably that they believe 'version 1.0' to be a dirty
word.

- Peter
-- 
Peter N. M. Hansteen         [email-masked], [email-masked]
Datadokumentasjon A/S, Bredsgaarden 2, N-5003 Bergen, Norway
Tel: +47 55 32 08 02                    Fax: +47 55 32 14 95

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