OT: Why it is better to pretend you know nothing about computers

[Mark]

But Win7 is Vista!

[SteveH]

In the same way that XP is Windows Millenium

[><((]

No way at all - you're wrong

Millenium has similarities with Win 98 but none at all with XP - XP is completely different. However the menu and structure of Win 7 and Vista are very similar

[Andy Burns]

Err not really, WinME was related to Win98, WinXP was related to Win2K

[Bob Eager]

That's what I've done for many years. My usage of Windows has always been minimal.

[Bob Eager]

[Bob Eager]

You missed the irony too.

[SteveH]

Wooosh indeed.. :-(

[SteveH]

And which came first in each case? Did I mention which was /related/ to which?

[SteveH]

[Bob Eager]

Anyway, WinNT is related to VAX/VMS. So there!

[SteveH]

You sure, I thought it was related to the ZX81 o/s

[Bob Eager]

Looking at my ZX81, I can tell you it is not!

But then I was being serious and you were making a very boring anti- Windows joke. No, I don't like Windows either, and I use it little, but it's been done to death.

[Adrian C]

The letters 'W','N', & 'T' are each a one character transpose from 'V','M' & 'S', just as 'H','A','L' is from 'I','B','M'.

/me holds up sea shell to ear in preparation ....

[tony sayer]

Yep WIN ME Was a real pile of dog do, WIN 98 was OK "ish" for its vintage but WIN 2000 PRO was very good..

Still use it on a few machines.. X pee didn't seem to offer that much over that..

[Bob Eager]

(yes, I know. But that isn't the only connection...)

(and both of those are *supposed* to be coincidences...)

[Jules Richardson]

Was it ever established how much commonality there was? I can certainly believe that the VMS code was studied and good concepts "borrowed" (and then the MS marketing department put a glossy "look what we invented" spin on it, which the general public happily believed), but I'm not sure if there was ever any direct pilfering of the actual algorithms, was there?

cheers

Jules

[The Natural Philosopher]

when it comes down to it, there are really only a few algorithms around that do most of the useful stuff.

Imagine trying to patent the round wheel, and arguing that only non round wheels could be used by other companies.

Or patenting A augmented fifth..

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Not a great deal. The story comes about due to Dave Cutler, senior chap at DEC who worked on VMS (but mostly other DEC stuff) who went to Microsoft to head up the development of NT.

So he'll have taken concepts developed at DEC to MS, but not source code etc.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Rob Morley]

The time-line is rather less relevant than the lineage.