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Dave Culter Speaks
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Neil Rieck
Oct 18, 2023, 2:37:45 PM10/18/23
to
An interview with Dave Cutler:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxmZPMg7vIs
p.s. I know that some people here think of Cutler as the enemy but I am not one of those. DEC lost Cutler after DEC closed "DEC West" (Seattle) in early 1988. Nathan Myhrvold heard about Cutler's departure and made the introduction to Bill Gates.
Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
http://neilrieck.net
http://neilrieck.net/OpenVMS.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxmZPMg7vIs
p.s. I know that some people here think of Cutler as the enemy but I am not one of those. DEC lost Cutler after DEC closed "DEC West" (Seattle) in early 1988. Nathan Myhrvold heard about Cutler's departure and made the introduction to Bill Gates.
Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
http://neilrieck.net
http://neilrieck.net/OpenVMS.html
Neil Rieck
Oct 18, 2023, 2:58:46 PM10/18/23
to
On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:37:45 PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
> An interview with Dave Cutler:
[...snip...]
> An interview with Dave Cutler:
>
Since this post earlier today, there have been at least two more
Thinkers vs Doers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1VcqmSceMw
Software with zero bugs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrrb5aQQcFk
Johnny Billquist
Oct 18, 2023, 5:51:06 PM10/18/23
to
On 2023-10-18 20:37, Neil Rieck wrote:
> An interview with Dave Cutler:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxmZPMg7vIs
Fun. And a PDP-11/70 frontpanel replica running RSX behind him as well. :-)
> An interview with Dave Cutler:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxmZPMg7vIs
If anyone is interested - that front panel can be had from here:
https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11
(in case people don't already know about it).
Johnny
Message has been deleted
Message has been deleted
Arne Vajhøj
Oct 18, 2023, 10:25:05 PM10/18/23
to
On 10/18/2023 9:53 PM, Rob Ses wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:37:45 PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck
> wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:37:45 PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck
> wrote:
>> p.s. I know that some people here think of Cutler as the enemy but
>> I am not one of those. DEC lost Cutler after DEC closed "DEC West"
>> (Seattle) in early 1988. Nathan Myhrvold heard about Cutler's
>> departure and made the introduction to Bill Gates.
>
> he sold stolen vms code to a crook ... that's admirable?
>> I am not one of those. DEC lost Cutler after DEC closed "DEC West"
>> (Seattle) in early 1988. Nathan Myhrvold heard about Cutler's
>> departure and made the introduction to Bill Gates.
>
Really?
Who else has an OS in Macro-32 and Bliss??
Arne
Neil Rieck
Oct 19, 2023, 6:29:18 AM10/19/23
to
Neil
Johnny Billquist
Oct 19, 2023, 7:23:12 AM10/19/23
to
remember... Maybe it was RT-11 that had the pattern that actually looks
like Cylons... Anyone remember for sure? (Yes, this is getting OT.)
Johnny
Simon Clubley
Oct 19, 2023, 8:21:17 AM10/19/23
to
On 2023-10-18, Rob Ses <ses...@gmail.com> wrote:
You have just accused him of stealing and then selling the source code
for a commercial product, VMS, to Microsoft.
That is very, very, factually incorrect and is libel.
Cutler instead took his _ideas_ from MICA (which at that point was a
cancelled product BTW) to Microsoft and implemented those _ideas_ in
WNT. MICA was an OS in its own right (with lots of very nice ideas)
and had nothing to do with VMS.
BTW, it's a pity he didn't take his ideas for a certain other something
else from that DEC project to Microsoft and implement them once there.
We would have all been better off because we would have had a more
safer alternative to C for low-level work.
Simon.
--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.
> he sold stolen vms code to a crook ... that's admirable?
You really need to be more careful about the things you say.
You have just accused him of stealing and then selling the source code
for a commercial product, VMS, to Microsoft.
That is very, very, factually incorrect and is libel.
Cutler instead took his _ideas_ from MICA (which at that point was a
cancelled product BTW) to Microsoft and implemented those _ideas_ in
WNT. MICA was an OS in its own right (with lots of very nice ideas)
and had nothing to do with VMS.
BTW, it's a pity he didn't take his ideas for a certain other something
else from that DEC project to Microsoft and implement them once there.
We would have all been better off because we would have had a more
safer alternative to C for low-level work.
Simon.
--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.
Message has been deleted
ultr...@gmail.com
Oct 19, 2023, 1:52:17 PM10/19/23
to
https://techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat
"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. And G Pascal Zachary, in Show-Stopper, his 1994 book on NT, says that Cutler saw Mica as the rough equivalent of NT. The source described Microsoft as having been dragged kicking and screaming into the alliance, despite the fact that DEC was allegedly prepared to lodge a suit claiming damages of upwards of $500m to $600m. The alliance gave Microsoft a way to pay DEC off without appearing to. The settlement came to about $105m including the $75m Microsoft kicked in to bolster DEC’s NT service and support operation. "
ultr...@gmail.com
Oct 19, 2023, 1:55:01 PM10/19/23
to
On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 8:21:17 AM UTC-4, Simon Clubley wrote:
"At the time there were those who alleged there was more to the deal than met the eye, and that Microsoft had been forced into the relationship to avoid getting sued by DEC for poaching its intellectual property. After all, Dave Cutler, chief architect of Windows NT, was also responsible for the VAX/VMS operating system while he was at DEC, and the similarities between the two environments have often been noted. Well, according to an informed source who spoke to our sister publication ClieNT Server News last week, when Cutler left DEC for Microsoft in October 1988, he not only took engineers with him, but also took the Mica operating system code he had been working on for DEC’s brutally aborted Prism RISC project, which was abandoned when DEC decided to use the MIPS RISC chip instead (CI No 970). DEC, of course, eventually did end up with a home- grown RISC, dumping MIPS for its Alpha chip only a few years later. 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. And G Pascal Zachary, in Show-Stopper, his 1994 book on NT, says that Cutler saw Mica as the rough equivalent of NT. The source described Microsoft as having been dragged kicking and screaming into the alliance, despite the fact that DEC was allegedly prepared to lodge a suit claiming damages of upwards of $500m to $600m."
Message has been deleted
Message has been deleted
ultr...@gmail.com
Oct 19, 2023, 1:59:51 PM10/19/23
to
DEC “FORCED MICROSOFT INTO ALLIANCE WITH LEGAL THREAT”
Simon Clubley
Oct 19, 2023, 2:03:59 PM10/19/23
to
On 2023-10-19, Rob Ses <ses...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Microshit settled with DEC in 1995 ... everyone knows the story ...
Everyone except you apparently. VMS was not the target of those
legal matters. Once again, there was nothing of interest in VMS
as far as Microsoft was concerned.
The design ideas in MICA were a different matter however, and as
I already mentioned, MICA was an OS in its own right and had nothing
to do with VMS. It was an OS that would allow you to run some VMS
user code on it, but it was NOT VMS.
Some reading for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_MICA
It really is a shame this didn't become a reality.
>
> Microshit settled with DEC in 1995 ... everyone knows the story ...
Everyone except you apparently. VMS was not the target of those
legal matters. Once again, there was nothing of interest in VMS
as far as Microsoft was concerned.
The design ideas in MICA were a different matter however, and as
I already mentioned, MICA was an OS in its own right and had nothing
to do with VMS. It was an OS that would allow you to run some VMS
user code on it, but it was NOT VMS.
Some reading for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_MICA
It really is a shame this didn't become a reality.
Simon Clubley
Oct 19, 2023, 2:13:37 PM10/19/23
to
On 2023-10-19, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> DEC ?FORCED MICROSOFT INTO ALLIANCE WITH LEGAL THREAT?
>
> https://techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat
>
> "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. And G Pascal Zachary, in Show-Stopper, his 1994 book on NT, says that Cutler saw Mica as the rough equivalent of NT. The source described Microsoft as having been dragged kicking and screaming into the alliance, despite the fact that DEC was allegedly prepared to lodge a suit claiming damages of upwards of $500m to $600m. The alliance gave Microsoft a way to pay DEC off without appearing to. The settlement came to about $105m including the $75m Microsoft kicked in to bolster DEC?s NT service and support operation. "
As you have just been told, MICA is absolutely nothing to do with VMS
and it was an OS in its own right, with a very different (and very nice)
internal design.
Its sole interaction with the VMS world is that you could run some
well-behaved VMS user mode programs on it because it was planned to
support some of the VMS APIs and was seen as a way of moving the VMS
userbase to a more modern and more flexible operating system.
The internals of MICA had nothing to do with the internals of VMS
however, and MICA was a much cleaner and much more elegant design.
>
> DEC ?FORCED MICROSOFT INTO ALLIANCE WITH LEGAL THREAT?
>
> https://techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat
>
> "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. And G Pascal Zachary, in Show-Stopper, his 1994 book on NT, says that Cutler saw Mica as the rough equivalent of NT. The source described Microsoft as having been dragged kicking and screaming into the alliance, despite the fact that DEC was allegedly prepared to lodge a suit claiming damages of upwards of $500m to $600m. The alliance gave Microsoft a way to pay DEC off without appearing to. The settlement came to about $105m including the $75m Microsoft kicked in to bolster DEC?s NT service and support operation. "
As you have just been told, MICA is absolutely nothing to do with VMS
and it was an OS in its own right, with a very different (and very nice)
internal design.
Its sole interaction with the VMS world is that you could run some
well-behaved VMS user mode programs on it because it was planned to
support some of the VMS APIs and was seen as a way of moving the VMS
userbase to a more modern and more flexible operating system.
The internals of MICA had nothing to do with the internals of VMS
however, and MICA was a much cleaner and much more elegant design.
Neil Rieck
Oct 19, 2023, 2:14:21 PM10/19/23
to
" Could Have Been a COBOL Programmer! Dave Cutler Interview"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGSyCRN9R6A
And this: Oral History of Dave Cutler Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29RkHH-psrY
Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
https://neilrieck.net/OpenVMS.html
ultr...@gmail.com
Oct 19, 2023, 5:45:56 PM10/19/23
to
ultr...@gmail.com
Oct 19, 2023, 6:01:27 PM10/19/23
to
On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 2:13:37 PM UTC-4, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-10-19, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > DEC ?FORCED MICROSOFT INTO ALLIANCE WITH LEGAL THREAT?
> >
> > https://techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat
> >
> > "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. And G Pascal Zachary, in Show-Stopper, his 1994 book on NT, says that Cutler saw Mica as the rough equivalent of NT. The source described Microsoft as having been dragged kicking and screaming into the alliance, despite the fact that DEC was allegedly prepared to lodge a suit claiming damages of upwards of $500m to $600m. The alliance gave Microsoft a way to pay DEC off without appearing to. The settlement came to about $105m including the $75m Microsoft kicked in to bolster DEC?s NT service and support operation. "
>
> >
> > DEC ?FORCED MICROSOFT INTO ALLIANCE WITH LEGAL THREAT?
> >
> > https://techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat
> >
> > "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. And G Pascal Zachary, in Show-Stopper, his 1994 book on NT, says that Cutler saw Mica as the rough equivalent of NT. The source described Microsoft as having been dragged kicking and screaming into the alliance, despite the fact that DEC was allegedly prepared to lodge a suit claiming damages of upwards of $500m to $600m. The alliance gave Microsoft a way to pay DEC off without appearing to. The settlement came to about $105m including the $75m Microsoft kicked in to bolster DEC?s NT service and support operation. "
>
> The internals of MICA had nothing to do with the internals of VMS
> however, and MICA was a much cleaner and much more elegant design.
> Simon.
you forgot "minus the security" ...
> however, and MICA was a much cleaner and much more elegant design.
> Simon.
Scott Dorsey
Oct 19, 2023, 6:55:14 PM10/19/23
to
Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>On 2023-10-18, Rob Ses <ses...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> he sold stolen vms code to a crook ... that's admirable?
>
>You really need to be more careful about the things you say.
>
>You have just accused him of stealing and then selling the source code
>for a commercial product, VMS, to Microsoft.
If only he had... the world might have been a lot better off... it took
>On 2023-10-18, Rob Ses <ses...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> he sold stolen vms code to a crook ... that's admirable?
>
>You really need to be more careful about the things you say.
>
>You have just accused him of stealing and then selling the source code
>for a commercial product, VMS, to Microsoft.
Microsoft many years to get up to the level of operating system features
that DEC had more than twenty years earlier...
>BTW, it's a pity he didn't take his ideas for a certain other something
>else from that DEC project to Microsoft and implement them once there.
>We would have all been better off because we would have had a more
>safer alternative to C for low-level work.
processes? Microsoft did eventually figure that stuff out with win7....
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
Michael S
Oct 20, 2023, 4:29:58 AM10/20/23
to
I am not aware of anything related to per-process memory protection or to
preemptive processes that is principally different between Windows 7 and
15 years earlier Windows NT 3.1.
Simon Clubley
Oct 20, 2023, 8:44:18 AM10/20/23
to
On 2023-10-19, Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote:
> Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>
> Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>
>>BTW, it's a pity he didn't take his ideas for a certain other something
>>else from that DEC project to Microsoft and implement them once there.
>>We would have all been better off because we would have had a more
>>safer alternative to C for low-level work.
>
> You mean like real per-process memory protection and reliable pre-emptive
> processes? Microsoft did eventually figure that stuff out with win7....
> --scott
No, Pillar. We have plenty of language choices for higher-level
>>else from that DEC project to Microsoft and implement them once there.
>>We would have all been better off because we would have had a more
>>safer alternative to C for low-level work.
>
> You mean like real per-process memory protection and reliable pre-emptive
> processes? Microsoft did eventually figure that stuff out with win7....
> --scott
programming, but we have what is a monoculture of one language when
it comes to low-level programming.
If Pillar had been adopted by DEC for use in production systems, DEC's
position in the marketplace at the time would have given the industry
a viable option to C.
Simon Clubley
Oct 20, 2023, 8:58:15 AM10/20/23
to
> On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 2:13:37?PM UTC-4, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2023-10-19, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > DEC ?FORCED MICROSOFT INTO ALLIANCE WITH LEGAL THREAT?
>> >
>> > https://techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat
>> >
>> > "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. And G Pascal Zachary, in Show-Stopper, his 1994 book on NT, says that Cutler saw Mica as the rough equivalent of NT. The source described Microsoft as having been dragged kicking and screaming into the alliance, despite the fact that DEC was allegedly prepared to lodge a suit claiming damages of upwards of $500m to $600m. The alliance gave Microsoft a way to pay DEC off without appearing to. The settlement came to about $105m including the $75m Microsoft kicked in to bolster DEC?s NT service and support operation. "
>>
>> As you have just been told, MICA is absolutely nothing to do with VMS
>> and it was an OS in its own right, with a very different (and very nice)
>> internal design.
>>
>> Its sole interaction with the VMS world is that you could run some
>> well-behaved VMS user mode programs on it because it was planned to
>> support some of the VMS APIs and was seen as a way of moving the VMS
>> userbase to a more modern and more flexible operating system.
>>
>> The internals of MICA had nothing to do with the internals of VMS
>> however, and MICA was a much cleaner and much more elegant design.
>
>> On 2023-10-19, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > DEC ?FORCED MICROSOFT INTO ALLIANCE WITH LEGAL THREAT?
>> >
>> > https://techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat
>> >
>> > "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. And G Pascal Zachary, in Show-Stopper, his 1994 book on NT, says that Cutler saw Mica as the rough equivalent of NT. The source described Microsoft as having been dragged kicking and screaming into the alliance, despite the fact that DEC was allegedly prepared to lodge a suit claiming damages of upwards of $500m to $600m. The alliance gave Microsoft a way to pay DEC off without appearing to. The settlement came to about $105m including the $75m Microsoft kicked in to bolster DEC?s NT service and support operation. "
>>
>> As you have just been told, MICA is absolutely nothing to do with VMS
>> and it was an OS in its own right, with a very different (and very nice)
>> internal design.
>>
>> Its sole interaction with the VMS world is that you could run some
>> well-behaved VMS user mode programs on it because it was planned to
>> support some of the VMS APIs and was seen as a way of moving the VMS
>> userbase to a more modern and more flexible operating system.
>>
>> The internals of MICA had nothing to do with the internals of VMS
>> however, and MICA was a much cleaner and much more elegant design.
>
> AND AS YOU HAVE JUST BEEN TOLD IT WAS STOLEN CODE ...
That's a serious allegation to make Bob.
Even if the above article is true (and that's a massive if because
I have never seen this reported elsewhere) how do you know it was
stolen ?
For example, I thought part of the DEC culture at the time was that
you could take some cancelled projects with you, but if you made
anything of them, you were expected to pay DEC royalties.
I'd like to see some reliable reference for the above claim, because
I don't believe the above claim as it is presented above.
I find it absolutely impossible to believe that someone of Cutler's
stature would outright steal code from a former employer and that
the new employer would then allow that stolen code to be used in the
new employer's operating system. That's just not believable on multiple
levels.
Arne Vajhøj
Oct 20, 2023, 9:49:02 AM10/20/23
to
On 10/19/2023 1:59 PM, ultr...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 10:25:05 PM UTC-4, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 10/18/2023 9:53 PM, Rob Ses wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:37:45 PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck
>>> wrote:
>>>> p.s. I know that some people here think of Cutler as the enemy but
>>>> I am not one of those. DEC lost Cutler after DEC closed "DEC West"
>>>> (Seattle) in early 1988. Nathan Myhrvold heard about Cutler's
>>>> departure and made the introduction to Bill Gates.
>>>
>>> he sold stolen vms code to a crook ... that's admirable?
>>
>> Really?
>>
>> Who else has an OS in Macro-32 and Bliss??
>>
>> Arne
>
> DEC “FORCED MICROSOFT INTO ALLIANCE WITH LEGAL THREAT”
>
> https://techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat
It is still not clear to me what code you claim was stolen.
> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 10:25:05 PM UTC-4, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 10/18/2023 9:53 PM, Rob Ses wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:37:45 PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck
>>> wrote:
>>>> p.s. I know that some people here think of Cutler as the enemy but
>>>> I am not one of those. DEC lost Cutler after DEC closed "DEC West"
>>>> (Seattle) in early 1988. Nathan Myhrvold heard about Cutler's
>>>> departure and made the introduction to Bill Gates.
>>>
>>> he sold stolen vms code to a crook ... that's admirable?
>>
>> Really?
>>
>> Who else has an OS in Macro-32 and Bliss??
>>
>> Arne
>
> DEC “FORCED MICROSOFT INTO ALLIANCE WITH LEGAL THREAT”
>
> https://techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat
VMS is primarily written in Macro-32 and Bliss
VAXELN was written in Pascal
Mica should have been written in Pillar but Mica never materialized and
the code was not written
NT kernel is written in C.
Arne
Message has been deleted
Arne Vajhøj
Oct 20, 2023, 10:19:53 AM10/20/23
to
On 10/19/2023 8:21 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-10-18, Rob Ses <ses...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> he sold stolen vms code to a crook ... that's admirable?
>
> You really need to be more careful about the things you say.
>
> You have just accused him of stealing and then selling the source code
> for a commercial product, VMS, to Microsoft.
>
> That is very, very, factually incorrect and is libel.
And easy to prove as such. If one agree that Macro-32 and Bliss are
> On 2023-10-18, Rob Ses <ses...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> he sold stolen vms code to a crook ... that's admirable?
>
> You really need to be more careful about the things you say.
>
> You have just accused him of stealing and then selling the source code
> for a commercial product, VMS, to Microsoft.
>
> That is very, very, factually incorrect and is libel.
different languages from C then the claim is already proven to be false.
> Cutler instead took his _ideas_ from MICA (which at that point was a
> cancelled product BTW) to Microsoft and implemented those _ideas_ in
> WNT. MICA was an OS in its own right (with lots of very nice ideas)
> and had nothing to do with VMS.
similar to VMS.
I remember people with VMS VAX device driver experience
saying that NT (must have been 3.x) device drivers was
very similar.
Whether it was:
VMS ideas -> NT ideas
or:
VMS ideas -> Mica ideas -> NT ideas
or a combination I don't know.
It may also be difficult to really distinguish. The evolution
of ideas can be a bit fuzzy even for the people actually
involved.
> BTW, it's a pity he didn't take his ideas for a certain other something
> else from that DEC project to Microsoft and implement them once there.
> We would have all been better off because we would have had a more
> safer alternative to C for low-level work.
Back in the late 70's and early 80's may have been
able to set the trend.
But in the late 80's and early 90's Unix was
pulling ahead.
It is not obviously to me that Mica could have
stopped the C-centrism in OS development 1990-2015.
Arne
Johnny Billquist
Oct 20, 2023, 10:43:57 AM10/20/23
to
On 2023-10-20 14:44, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-10-19, Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote:
>> Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>
>>> BTW, it's a pity he didn't take his ideas for a certain other something
>>> else from that DEC project to Microsoft and implement them once there.
>>> We would have all been better off because we would have had a more
>>> safer alternative to C for low-level work.
>>
>> You mean like real per-process memory protection and reliable pre-emptive
>> processes? Microsoft did eventually figure that stuff out with win7....
>> --scott
>
> No, Pillar. We have plenty of language choices for higher-level
> programming, but we have what is a monoculture of one language when
> it comes to low-level programming.
>
> If Pillar had been adopted by DEC for use in production systems, DEC's
> position in the marketplace at the time would have given the industry
> a viable option to C.
I've used Pascal based languages in similar environments. It was never
> On 2023-10-19, Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote:
>> Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>
>>> BTW, it's a pity he didn't take his ideas for a certain other something
>>> else from that DEC project to Microsoft and implement them once there.
>>> We would have all been better off because we would have had a more
>>> safer alternative to C for low-level work.
>>
>> You mean like real per-process memory protection and reliable pre-emptive
>> processes? Microsoft did eventually figure that stuff out with win7....
>> --scott
>
> No, Pillar. We have plenty of language choices for higher-level
> programming, but we have what is a monoculture of one language when
> it comes to low-level programming.
>
> If Pillar had been adopted by DEC for use in production systems, DEC's
> position in the marketplace at the time would have given the industry
> a viable option to C.
nice, and you desperately wished for something else.
I suspect Pillar would have ended up with the same feeling.
You could possibly look at Ada as en example where this ends up...
Johnny
Arne Vajhøj
Oct 20, 2023, 10:58:26 AM10/20/23
to
(Cybil was a Pascal like language used on CDC NOS/VE and
ETA eOS as OS implementation language and system interface
language)
User mode code only no kernel mode. But I thought Cybil was OK.
The context was a bit weird.
high level Fortran--[defined API] low level Macro-32 on VMS made sense
"high level" Fortran--[defined API] "low level" Cybil on NOS/VE was weird
But that was not Cybil's fault.
Arne
I
chrisq
Oct 21, 2023, 7:48:29 PM10/21/23
to
Cutler did have was years of experience of os design in a
disciplined professional environment. That sort of knowledge would
have been valuable to any company planning to build their own os.
A lot of os concepts that had been possible only in mainframe class
machines were becoming possible with micros, so more of a natural
progression in technology terms. Even if some of the concepts were
picked up elsewhere. All about experience and vision in the end...
Chris
Arne Vajhøj
Oct 21, 2023, 8:13:15 PM10/21/23
to
On 10/21/2023 7:48 PM, chrisq wrote:
> On 10/20/23 13:48, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 10/19/2023 1:59 PM, ultr...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 10:25:05 PM UTC-4, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> On 10/18/2023 9:53 PM, Rob Ses wrote:
>>>>> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:37:45 PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> p.s. I know that some people here think of Cutler as the enemy but
>>>>>> I am not one of those. DEC lost Cutler after DEC closed "DEC West"
>>>>>> (Seattle) in early 1988. Nathan Myhrvold heard about Cutler's
>>>>>> departure and made the introduction to Bill Gates.
>>>>>
>>>>> he sold stolen vms code to a crook ... that's admirable?
>>>>
>>>> Really?
>>>>
>>>> Who else has an OS in Macro-32 and Bliss??
>>>
> On 10/20/23 13:48, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 10/19/2023 1:59 PM, ultr...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 10:25:05 PM UTC-4, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> On 10/18/2023 9:53 PM, Rob Ses wrote:
>>>>> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:37:45 PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> p.s. I know that some people here think of Cutler as the enemy but
>>>>>> I am not one of those. DEC lost Cutler after DEC closed "DEC West"
>>>>>> (Seattle) in early 1988. Nathan Myhrvold heard about Cutler's
>>>>>> departure and made the introduction to Bill Gates.
>>>>>
>>>>> he sold stolen vms code to a crook ... that's admirable?
>>>>
>>>> Really?
>>>>
>>>> Who else has an OS in Macro-32 and Bliss??
>>>
>>> DEC “FORCED MICROSOFT INTO ALLIANCE WITH LEGAL THREAT”
>>>
>>> https://techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat
>>
>> It is still not clear to me what code you claim was stolen.
>>
>> VMS is primarily written in Macro-32 and Bliss
>>
>> VAXELN was written in Pascal
>>
>> Mica should have been written in Pillar but Mica never materialized
>> and the code was not written
>>
>> NT kernel is written in C.
>
>>>
>>> https://techmonitor.ai/technology/dec_forced_microsoft_into_alliance_with_legal_threat
>>
>> It is still not clear to me what code you claim was stolen.
>>
>> VMS is primarily written in Macro-32 and Bliss
>>
>> VAXELN was written in Pascal
>>
>> Mica should have been written in Pillar but Mica never materialized
>> and the code was not written
>>
>> NT kernel is written in C.
>
> I doubt if the code itself would have been any use at all, but what
> Cutler did have was years of experience of os design in a
> disciplined professional environment. That sort of knowledge would
> have been valuable to any company planning to build their own os.
Obviously.
> Cutler did have was years of experience of os design in a
> disciplined professional environment. That sort of knowledge would
> have been valuable to any company planning to build their own os.
It is always beneficial for a software development project to hire
people with experience in that particular type of software.
And people do not forget all the experience they have gained
working for company X when they switch to company Y.
Dave Cutler is an expert in OS development. VMS, VAXELN,
Mica, Windows NT, Azure platform, Xbox One.
Just like another MS guy Anders Hejlsberg is an expert in
programming languages. PolyPascal, TurboPascal, Delphi,
J++, C#, TypeScript.
Arne
Neil Rieck
Oct 23, 2023, 2:54:52 PM10/23/23
to
On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:58:46 PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:37:45 PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:37:45 PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
> > An interview with Dave Cutler:
> [...snip...]
Got three hours to kill? Here is the full interview with Dave Cutler
> [...snip...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE
gah4
Oct 23, 2023, 3:51:46 PM10/23/23
to
On Saturday, October 21, 2023 at 4:48:29 PM UTC-7, chrisq wrote:
(snip)
> I doubt if the code itself would have been any use at all, but what
> Cutler did have was years of experience of os design in a
> disciplined professional environment. That sort of knowledge would
> have been valuable to any company planning to build their own os.
> A lot of os concepts that had been possible only in mainframe class
> machines were becoming possible with micros, so more of a natural
> progression in technology terms. Even if some of the concepts were
> picked up elsewhere. All about experience and vision in the end...
Seems that many of the lessons learned in mainframe machine design
and OS design had to be relearned in microcomputer and OS design.
(snip)
> I doubt if the code itself would have been any use at all, but what
> Cutler did have was years of experience of os design in a
> disciplined professional environment. That sort of knowledge would
> have been valuable to any company planning to build their own os.
> A lot of os concepts that had been possible only in mainframe class
> machines were becoming possible with micros, so more of a natural
> progression in technology terms. Even if some of the concepts were
> picked up elsewhere. All about experience and vision in the end...
and OS design had to be relearned in microcomputer and OS design.
Simon Clubley
Oct 24, 2023, 8:06:26 AM10/24/23
to
On 2023-10-23, Neil Rieck <n.r...@bell.net> wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:58:46?PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
him in those comments than there is in some parts around here. :-)
> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:58:46?PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
>> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:37:45?PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
>> > An interview with Dave Cutler:
>> [...snip...]
>
> Got three hours to kill? Here is the full interview with Dave Cutler
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE
>
I have not watched the video, but there's a lot more respect for
>> > An interview with Dave Cutler:
>> [...snip...]
>
> Got three hours to kill? Here is the full interview with Dave Cutler
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE
>
him in those comments than there is in some parts around here. :-)
chrisq
Oct 24, 2023, 12:57:27 PM10/24/23
to
On 10/24/23 12:06, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-10-23, Neil Rieck <n.r...@bell.net> wrote:
>> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:58:46?PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:37:45?PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
>>>> An interview with Dave Cutler:
>>> [...snip...]
>>
>> Got three hours to kill? Here is the full interview with Dave Cutler
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE
>>
>
> I have not watched the video, but there's a lot more respect for
> him in those comments than there is in some parts around here. :-)
>
> Simon.
>
I guess if you have a project cancelled that you had put heart and
> On 2023-10-23, Neil Rieck <n.r...@bell.net> wrote:
>> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:58:46?PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 2:37:45?PM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
>>>> An interview with Dave Cutler:
>>> [...snip...]
>>
>> Got three hours to kill? Here is the full interview with Dave Cutler
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE
>>
>
> I have not watched the video, but there's a lot more respect for
> him in those comments than there is in some parts around here. :-)
>
> Simon.
>
soul into for some time, you would tend to look elsewhere. It's
about career progression and professional self worth, especially if
a very well resourced company offers a pretty much free hand in a new
design. I would jump at the chance, as would most with an eye on the
future. Talented engineers with the right stuff are few and far
between, and often undervalued,,,
Chris
comp.os.vms
Oct 24, 2023, 8:50:08 PM10/24/23
to comp.os.vms to email gateway
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Info-vax <info-vax...@rbnsn.com> On Behalf Of ultr...--- via Info-
> vax
> Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2023 7:01 PM
> To: info...@rbnsn.com
> Cc: ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Info-vax] Dave Culter Speaks
>
> On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 2:13:37 PM UTC-4, Simon Clubley wrote:
> > On 2023-10-19, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > DEC ?FORCED MICROSOFT INTO ALLIANCE WITH LEGAL THREAT?
> > >
To add to this, at the time, all of a sudden there was almost unlimited training that became available for Microsoft products.
> From: Info-vax <info-vax...@rbnsn.com> On Behalf Of ultr...--- via Info-
> vax
> Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2023 7:01 PM
> To: info...@rbnsn.com
> Cc: ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Info-vax] Dave Culter Speaks
>
> On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 2:13:37 PM UTC-4, Simon Clubley wrote:
> > On 2023-10-19, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > DEC ?FORCED MICROSOFT INTO ALLIANCE WITH LEGAL THREAT?
> > >
And Microsoft agreed to limited set of Microsoft products being ported to Alpha.
We always wondered why the push for Microsoft products on Alpha was always half hearted e.g. leaving debug code in
some Alpha NT products released as prod code.
Can't say for sure who was actually responsible for it, but rumours at the time was they actually found DTN numbers in the
Microsoft NT source code.
Old Deccies will know what DTN numbers were ....
[snip]
Regards,
Kerry Main
Kerry dot main at starkgaming dot com
Simon Clubley
Oct 25, 2023, 8:12:31 AM10/25/23
to
On 2023-10-24, comp.os.vms <kemain...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Can't say for sure who was actually responsible for it, but rumours at the time was they actually found DTN numbers in the
> Microsoft NT source code.
>
> Old Deccies will know what DTN numbers were ....
>
So what you are saying is that Microsoft secretly implemented a Pillar
>
> Can't say for sure who was actually responsible for it, but rumours at the time was they actually found DTN numbers in the
> Microsoft NT source code.
>
> Old Deccies will know what DTN numbers were ....
>
compiler without telling anyone ? Any chance you could get them to
release it ? I would _really_ like to play with it.
BTW Kerry, how is Elvis these days ?
Simon.
PS: It's bad enough that Bob is posting some heavily garbled rubbish
that has become outright libel, without you getting in on the act.
PPS: A question for you Kerry: what language was this source code written
in, and from which DEC product was this source code taken from ?
Arne Vajhøj
Oct 25, 2023, 6:41:18 PM10/25/23
to
On 10/24/2023 12:57 PM, chrisq wrote:
> On 10/24/23 12:06, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2023-10-23, Neil Rieck <n.r...@bell.net> wrote:
>>> Got three hours to kill? Here is the full interview with Dave Cutler
>>>
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE
>>
>> I have not watched the video, but there's a lot more respect for
>> him in those comments than there is in some parts around here. :-)
>
> On 10/24/23 12:06, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2023-10-23, Neil Rieck <n.r...@bell.net> wrote:
>>> Got three hours to kill? Here is the full interview with Dave Cutler
>>>
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE
>>
>> I have not watched the video, but there's a lot more respect for
>> him in those comments than there is in some parts around here. :-)
>
> I guess if you have a project cancelled that you had put heart and
> soul into for some time, you would tend to look elsewhere. It's
> about career progression and professional self worth, especially if
> a very well resourced company offers a pretty much free hand in a new
> design. I would jump at the chance, as would most with an eye on the
> future. Talented engineers with the right stuff are few and far
> between, and often undervalued,,,
Even without getting a project cancelled then people
> soul into for some time, you would tend to look elsewhere. It's
> about career progression and professional self worth, especially if
> a very well resourced company offers a pretty much free hand in a new
> design. I would jump at the chance, as would most with an eye on the
> future. Talented engineers with the right stuff are few and far
> between, and often undervalued,,,
change jobs occasionally.
MS seems good at attracting technical capacities (Cutler,
Hejlsberg, Van Rossum, Russinovich, Icaza, Ozzie etc.), so
I suspect that they pay well.
Arne
John Dallman
Nov 8, 2023, 10:28:41 PM11/8/23
to
In article <ugtsms$12u2v$3...@dont-email.me>,
assembler source in early October, which does stuff that cannot be
expressed in C. It was something of a special case: test cases for an
error handler, which deliberately set off ARM64 security features, to
ensure that the error handler can recognise and report them correctly.
This required abuse of the calling convention, which you can't write in
portable C.
> If Pillar had been adopted by DEC for use in production systems,
> DEC's position in the marketplace at the time would have given the
> industry a viable option to C.
It would have been an alternative, assuming that DEC did not keep the
language proprietary, but I'm not sure it would have been widely taken up.
I've been reading the Pillar manual from Bitsavers, and it does not come
over as an attractive language to a C programmer. It has many good things,
but some of the bad ones are quite bad.
It's a language specifically designed for 32-bit PRISM, rather than for
portability across a range of architectures. C and UNIX's strengths in
portability go back to the 1970s. After the initial implementation of
UNIX on the 16-bit PDP-11. Bell Labs ported it to the Interdata 8/32,
which had an architecture loosely based on the IBM/360. They picked it
because it was so different from the PDP-11.
It's Pascal-based, but with something of a PL/1 feel. It looks
cumbersome and complicated; one of C's virtues to those used to it are
that it's pretty terse. There's a lot of compulsory UPPERCASE, and some
dubious choices in the type system:
* WORD is 16 bits and LONGWORD and QUADWORD are based on that. None of
these types have defined arithmetic.
* Fixed sizes for INTEGER, LARGE_INTEGER, REAL and DOUBLE.
* No unsigned integer types that you can do calculations with.
* Making POINTER the same size as LONGWORD, limiting it to 32 bits.
That means you can do address calculations in LARGE_INTEGERs, but you
have to convert them back to LONGWORDs and it's more cumbersome than
unsigned 32-bit arithmetic. The language specification would need
revising for a 64-bit machine, and another integer type would be needed
for 64-bit address arithmetic.
It also has arithmetic exception rules that are hard to implement on some
architectures: "Arithmetic instructions that do not detect overflow will
be generated unless range checking is enabled at compile time," On x86,
the trapping of floating-point overflow is controlled at run-time by
flags in a control register. If those have to be preserved and set each
time a Pillar module is entered, there will be a speed penalty.
The BOOLEAN handling, in contrast, is perfectly sound.
There are length-counted strings, but they have weirdnesses, like the
length value stored with them being a /signed/ 16-bit integer: what does
a negative value mean? There are variable-length arrays, but they are
limited to block scope, and there's no associated storage arrangement
AFAICS. Overall, the type system is not well designed for getting the
most out of hardware.
The BIND and ENVIRONMENT declarations are weird ways of avoiding the use
of pointers, and ENVIRONMENT seems to be meant for event handlers. The
DEFINE declaration acts kind of like a macro, but I'm not sure what it is
meant for.
The string functions would need re-working for character sets large than
8 bits, but Pillar predates Unicode, so this is not a culpable flaw.
The pointer operations are weaker than those of C, and under-specified.
They don't specify any kind of scaling for integers added and subtracted
to pointers. In C, for example, adding 1 to a pointer to int increases
the pointer's value by the size of an int. If that isn't meant to exist,
it makes pointers /less/ safe than in C, because it's easy to produce
misaligned ones.
The rule about modifications to IN-qualified procedure arguments (that
they're errors with unpredictable results, which the compiler cannot
always recognise and report) is just daft in a language that is meant to
be secure. The error is repeated for OUT parameters, where the effect of
assigning to them is dependent on system conventions, spoiling
portability. The parameter passing mechanisms are complicated in general,
and the same code can do different things on different OSes, spoiling
portability.
Pillar is certainly a better language for writing most of an OS than
Macro-32 or Bliss, but I'm really dubious that it would have competed
effectively with C outside DEC, or that software written in it would be
intrinsically secure. It would likely have different characteristic
security bugs from C, but it would have them.
An interesting detail in the specification is OZIX, the UNIX subsystem
for PRISM/MICA:
<https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102750715>.
John
clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP (Simon Clubley) wrote:
> No, Pillar. We have plenty of language choices for higher-level
> programming, but we have what is a monoculture of one language when
> it comes to low-level programming.
/Fairly/ low-level programming. I was obliged to modify some ARM64
> No, Pillar. We have plenty of language choices for higher-level
> programming, but we have what is a monoculture of one language when
> it comes to low-level programming.
assembler source in early October, which does stuff that cannot be
expressed in C. It was something of a special case: test cases for an
error handler, which deliberately set off ARM64 security features, to
ensure that the error handler can recognise and report them correctly.
This required abuse of the calling convention, which you can't write in
portable C.
> If Pillar had been adopted by DEC for use in production systems,
> DEC's position in the marketplace at the time would have given the
> industry a viable option to C.
language proprietary, but I'm not sure it would have been widely taken up.
I've been reading the Pillar manual from Bitsavers, and it does not come
over as an attractive language to a C programmer. It has many good things,
but some of the bad ones are quite bad.
It's a language specifically designed for 32-bit PRISM, rather than for
portability across a range of architectures. C and UNIX's strengths in
portability go back to the 1970s. After the initial implementation of
UNIX on the 16-bit PDP-11. Bell Labs ported it to the Interdata 8/32,
which had an architecture loosely based on the IBM/360. They picked it
because it was so different from the PDP-11.
It's Pascal-based, but with something of a PL/1 feel. It looks
cumbersome and complicated; one of C's virtues to those used to it are
that it's pretty terse. There's a lot of compulsory UPPERCASE, and some
dubious choices in the type system:
* WORD is 16 bits and LONGWORD and QUADWORD are based on that. None of
these types have defined arithmetic.
* Fixed sizes for INTEGER, LARGE_INTEGER, REAL and DOUBLE.
* No unsigned integer types that you can do calculations with.
* Making POINTER the same size as LONGWORD, limiting it to 32 bits.
That means you can do address calculations in LARGE_INTEGERs, but you
have to convert them back to LONGWORDs and it's more cumbersome than
unsigned 32-bit arithmetic. The language specification would need
revising for a 64-bit machine, and another integer type would be needed
for 64-bit address arithmetic.
It also has arithmetic exception rules that are hard to implement on some
architectures: "Arithmetic instructions that do not detect overflow will
be generated unless range checking is enabled at compile time," On x86,
the trapping of floating-point overflow is controlled at run-time by
flags in a control register. If those have to be preserved and set each
time a Pillar module is entered, there will be a speed penalty.
The BOOLEAN handling, in contrast, is perfectly sound.
There are length-counted strings, but they have weirdnesses, like the
length value stored with them being a /signed/ 16-bit integer: what does
a negative value mean? There are variable-length arrays, but they are
limited to block scope, and there's no associated storage arrangement
AFAICS. Overall, the type system is not well designed for getting the
most out of hardware.
The BIND and ENVIRONMENT declarations are weird ways of avoiding the use
of pointers, and ENVIRONMENT seems to be meant for event handlers. The
DEFINE declaration acts kind of like a macro, but I'm not sure what it is
meant for.
The string functions would need re-working for character sets large than
8 bits, but Pillar predates Unicode, so this is not a culpable flaw.
The pointer operations are weaker than those of C, and under-specified.
They don't specify any kind of scaling for integers added and subtracted
to pointers. In C, for example, adding 1 to a pointer to int increases
the pointer's value by the size of an int. If that isn't meant to exist,
it makes pointers /less/ safe than in C, because it's easy to produce
misaligned ones.
The rule about modifications to IN-qualified procedure arguments (that
they're errors with unpredictable results, which the compiler cannot
always recognise and report) is just daft in a language that is meant to
be secure. The error is repeated for OUT parameters, where the effect of
assigning to them is dependent on system conventions, spoiling
portability. The parameter passing mechanisms are complicated in general,
and the same code can do different things on different OSes, spoiling
portability.
Pillar is certainly a better language for writing most of an OS than
Macro-32 or Bliss, but I'm really dubious that it would have competed
effectively with C outside DEC, or that software written in it would be
intrinsically secure. It would likely have different characteristic
security bugs from C, but it would have them.
An interesting detail in the specification is OZIX, the UNIX subsystem
for PRISM/MICA:
<https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102750715>.
John
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