Re: [Gnu-arch-users] tla1.2 on cygwin

[Adrien Beau]

On Thursday 04 March 2004 06:07, Evan Powers wrote:
> 
> > Well, NT is/was an OS/2 kernel with a Windows GUI.  Win95/98/ME were a
> > DOS kernel with a Windows GUI.
> 
> Are you sure about that? OS/2 is the name of IBM's operating system product 
> which they designed, if I remember the story correctly, to KILL OFF Microsoft 
> (among other things). NT, on the other hand, is an acronym for New 
> Technology, whatever that means -- but I sincerely doubt it means IBM's OS/2.

Microsoft and IBM teamed up to produce OS/2 and maybe even
released a few versions together or at least cooperatively. Then
Microsoft went on its own way for some reason and released
Windows 3.0, and then 3.1, etc.

Some time later, Microsoft began working on a new operating
system, hiring many core DEC VMS developers to that effect. The
saying goes that Windows NT got its insipid name so that the
corresponding acronym (WNT) was a play on VMS (add one to every
letter).

> > Hence, NT actually had fairly good compatibility with DOS programs
> > because it was like an early, more tightly-integrated VMware.
> 
> I don't think this is true. In fact, I believe the opposite: NT 3.x had 
> absolutely no support for DOS programs. I think they shoehorned some 
> compatibility into Windows 2000 to help convince people to upgrade, and I 
> think I remember reading that XP has even better compatibility. Perhaps it 
> was only that XP has better compability with Windows 95 than 2000 did, not 
> DOS....

Some MS-DOS games still work pretty well under Windows XP, and
I'm sure they work much better there than under early Windows NT
releases.

-- 
address@hidden - http://adrien.beau.free.fr/