Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/08/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Sat, 24 Aug 2002, Austin Franklin wrote: > > Multiple processor Intel systems run on what I understand is a version of > > Unix.....a special version......and even if THAT is wrong, I do know that > > the resemblance of the correct OS to anything you have at a > > normal home, is > > purely fictional.... > > Well, NT and subsequent OSs have always been able to run on multiple CPUs. > The chief architect of NT etc. was Dave Cutler, who came to Microsoft from > Digital Equipment Corporation, where he was one of the architects of VMS, > which is one of the better/best/most advanced operating systems ever > developed. There was always a "joke" about VMS - WNT...note that it's > merely a one letter advance in sequence, just like HAL and IBM from 2001... > Cutler moved MS out of the toy OS realm to a professional level OS realm. > > Until Dave arrived at Microsoft, they (MS) didn't really have a clue about > advanced OS development...and their best effort was Win 3.1, which, from a > reliability/usability standpoint was a disaster. NT, and subsequent NT > based products have been far far better than anything MS has ever done as > far as OSs go. > > Anyway, NT and subsequent OSs support clustering and multiple processors > etc. and do so somewhat well as a matter of fact. You can thank Digital for > that (as well as a host of other things you probably aren't aware of that > came directly from development at Digital). > > Austin > > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html > Austin, You sound well-informed on the DEC/MS connection, but as a VMS fanatic, I must speak up to say that NT (and subsequent OS) SMP, clustering, and reliability are still pretty weak in spite of Digital's influence. I realize you never said they were especially strong, but the Microsoft way of doing things appears to have won out over DEC's well-engineered, well-documented, hardware fault tolerant approach. On the Unix and VMS machines here a year's uptime is not all that uncommon. More on topic - I've got over a terabyte of images (some of it originating on equipment made by Leica) and use VMS for storage so the images will not disappear if power fails, a virus arrives, a hacker attacks, or someone sneezes. John Nebel - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html