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Vista vs. Cairo - A Microsoft History Lesson

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the something-to-read dept.

avocade writes "Here is a nice history lesson by (the unfortunately infamous) Daniel Eran, arguing why the Longhorn/Vista road is very similar to the NT/Cairo road that Microsoft took in the 90's, effectively trying their best to discourage competition in the marketplace."

4 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. NT by DrSkwid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    NT stand for Nested Task, it's a register in the 286 that helps preepmtive multi-tasking which is the feature of both OS/2 and NT that distinguishes them from Window 3.x/9x that used co-operative multi-tasking.

    http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2006/readings/i386 /s04_01.htm

    4.1.1 Systems Flags
    The systems flags of the EFLAGS register control I/O, maskable interrupts, debugging, task switching, and enabling of virtual 8086 execution in a protected, multitasking environment. These flags are highlighted in Figure 4-1 .

    NT (Nested Task, bit 14)
            The processor uses the nested task flag to control chaining of interrupted and called tasks. NT influences the operation of the IRET instruction .

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
    1. Re:NT by pla · · Score: 4, Interesting

      NT stand for Nested Task

      Or, officially, "New Technology".

      Or, the most likely of all, by analogy to IBM -> HAL (as in, HAL-9000 from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey), VMS -> W(indows)NT. I would normally consider that a cute coincidence, if they didn't share Dave Cutler as a lead designer on both projects.

      But given that he did help design both OSs, and the propensity for geeks to come up with bizarrely convoluted acronyms, I'd call that the "right" answer as to the origins of the name "NT".

    2. Re:NT by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Sight. This topic. Again.

      Just check the Windows NT wikipedia page, which links at page, where you can find this quote from one of the original NT creators:

      "We checked the first code pieces in around mid-December 1988," Lucovsky said, "and had a very basic system kind of booting on a simulator of the Intel i860 (which was codenamed "N-Ten") by January." In fact, this is where NT actually got its name, Lucovsky revealed, adding that the "new technology" moniker was added after the fact in a rare spurt of product marketing by the original NT team members. "Originally, we were targeting NT to the Intel i860, a RISC processor that was horribly behind schedule. Because we didn't have any i860 machines in-house to test on, we used an i860 simulator. That's why we called it NT, because it worked on the 'N-Ten.'"

      So please, stop all those theories, the origins of the name are well documented.

  2. Re:How else do you get a message out? by mccalli · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If an individual has a message they feel is important that they want to get out, I don't see an issue with posting a reference or two. Flooding a board is another story.

    ...and flooding is what's taking place. Yes, a post such as "here's a new and interesting Apple-related blog, please come and have a look" would have gone down fine. Instead we get every single article he writes for this blog being dumped as a rhetorical question into a group which specifically forbids advertising, and then he never engages in any discussion regarding it. The regulars of the group have all asked him to stop. He just totally disregards us.

    Besides, using the term "SPAM" is inaccurate: what is the commercial benefit of his links?

    Advertising revenue. He's abusing a community discussion group to take every opportunity to dump links to his advert revenue-driven blog. The group does not exist for his enrichment, as we say on there: uk.comp.sys.mac.adverts is thataway -->.

    Cheers,
    Ian