On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 7:31 AM, Frank Ress <[email protected]> wrote: > And WNT (Windows New Technology) is a one letter shift in the opposite > direction from VMS.
Everyone says that was just coincidence, too. I tend believe them, as the original name was "NT OS/2". http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_742559 > Architecturally, one of the primary design goals was hardware independence. > WNT initially supported 4 platforms: Intel x86, Motorola 68000; DEC Alpha, > and Silicon Graphics (I think the name was something like Iris). I don't believe NT ever ran on the 68K (at least in public). SGI used 68K processors in earlier models and MIPS in later models. Early NT did run on MIPS; perhaps that's where your confusion stems from. NT targeted ARC, the ill-fated "Advanced RISC Computing" consortium platform, which never really took off. It's sole lasting contribution is the drive identifier scheme used in BOOT.INI. There were a few MIPS-based machines which could run NT, but they weren't the IRIX workstations SGI was known for. I don't know if NT ever ran on the same machines as IRIX. I would guess not; IRIX and its hardware were designed for each other. Somewhat ironically, SGI did later sell NT machines, briefly -- but they used x86 CPUs. > And the Windows family of products is STILL the only system that can run on > every device tier in a corporate environment, from server to smartphone. Is Windows Phone based on NT in it's latest incarnations? I know the earlier, WinCE-based stuff, was very different from NT, internally. The UI was designed to be similar, but it was only skin-deep. The kernel, drivers, and userland were all different. -- Ben
