this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
413 points (91.2% liked)

linuxmemes

21210 readers
66 users here now

Hint: :q!


Sister communities:


Community rules (click to expand)

1. Follow the site-wide rules

2. Be civil
  • Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.
  • Do not harrass or attack members of the community for any reason.
  • Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.
  • Bigotry will not be tolerated.
  • These rules are somewhat loosened when the subject is a public figure. Still, do not attack their person or incite harrassment.
  • 3. Post Linux-related content
  • Including Unix and BSD.
  • Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of sudo in Windows.
  • No porn. Even if you watch it on a Linux machine.
  • 4. No recent reposts
  • Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.

  • Please report posts and comments that break these rules!

    founded 1 year ago
    MODERATORS
     
    you are viewing a single comment's thread
    view the rest of the comments
    [–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 15 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    That's a funny way to spell DOS

    [–] femboy_bird@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

    That's a funny way to spell NT

    [–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Windows is based on VMS which was based on RSX-11. Rsx-11 was the OS that Unix was written on.

    So a truly traditionally authentic Linux kernel should be compiled under Windows.

    [–] cmgvd3lw@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 7 months ago

    No no, I wrote it as an expansion for WSL (Window'S Linux)

    [–] rhet0rica@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

    I realize you're trying to be funny, but just in case you don't know the actual history:

    The Windows NT kernel was architected by Dave Cutler, who had previously designed the VMS and RSX-11M kernels. (RSX-11 is actually a family of PDP-11 operating systems; the "M" stood for "multitasking.") No code was ever shared between the three.

    The Unix implementation team started out on a PDP-7, which was a much smaller computer than a PDP-11. Its first code was cross-compiled from a GE 635 mainframe left over at AT&T from the Multics project, which (if it ran anything) would have only had GECOS available. They did eventually graduate to a PDP-11/45, but to do this they used their PDP-7 system to cross-compile. Unix was ported to the PDP-11 in 1970, two years before the first RSX-11 release from DEC (which wasn't even Cutler's RSX-11M; that was 1974).

    The appropriate precursor to Linux would be Minix, a much later Unix-like system, which Torvalds was trying to clone. At the time, Microsoft did have its hands in the x86 'nix pie, however; Xenix was popular in business.

    [–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

    A minor correction:

    No code was ever shared between the three.

    I remember the lawsuit threats back in the 90's. Here's an article from 1996:

    "Last year, somone from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology apparently found whole chunks of Mica comment for comment, note for note still there in Windows NT."

    https://techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat

    [–] rhet0rica@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago

    Right; Mica wasn't VMS as far as I know, but rather a generic kernel that would have hosted VMS as a client API, a little like how NT hosts Win32 and POSIX (and not OS/2), or how IBM's Workplace OS was going to host OS/2, AIX, and Mac OS as "personalities." It's not likely that any VMS-specific code would have been salvaged from Mica for use in NT, but rather the nucleus of a portable API-agnostic kernel, in which case any architectural resemblance to VMS has more to do with Cutler's sensibilities and less to do with code re-use.