A. A. In the late 1980's the Windows environment was
created to run on the Microsoft DOS operating system. Microsoft and IBM
joined forces to create a DOS replacement that would run on the Intel
platform that led to the creation of OS/2, and at the same time Microsoft
was working on a more powerful operating system that would run on other
processor platforms. The idea was that the new OS would be written in a
high level language (such as C) so it would be more portable.
Microsoft hired Dave Cutler (who also designed Digital's VMS) to head
the team for the New Technology Operating System (NT :-) ). Originally the
new OS was to be called OS/2 NT.
In the early 1990's Microsoft released version 3.0 of its windows OS
which gained a large user base, and it was at this point that Microsoft
and IBM's split started as the two companies disagreed on the future of
their OS's. IBM viewed Windows as a stepping stone to the superior OS/2,
where as Microsoft wanted to expand Windows to compete with OS/2, so they
split, IBM kept OS/2 and Microsoft change OS/2 NT to Windows NT.
Nt was once called OS/3, and OS/2 V3, I am informed by a alpha tester
for IBM & MS, he had a set of 5.25 diskettes from Microsoft, and
that's how he got them.
The first version of Windows NT (3.1) was released in 1993 and had the
same GUI as the normal Windows Operating System, however it was a pure 32
bit OS, but provided the ability to also run older DOS and Windows apps,
as well as character mode OS/2 1.3 programs.
For a detailed history have a look at
http://windowsnt.miningco.com
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