Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!sun!token!alpope
From: alpope@token.Sun.COM (Alan Pope)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Why unix doesn't catch on
Message-ID: <105453@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 17 May 89 23:22:20 GMT
References: <7632@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <256@jwt.UUCP> <2496@bucsb.UUCP> <10571@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
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In article <10571@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>, tim@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Timothy L. Kay) writes:
> In article (Anthony Scian) writes:
> >Yes. A company that ignores history is doomed to repeat it.
> >Maybe they'll invent SNOBOL in five years. It is beyond comprehension
> >how anybody can develop an OS in assembly language this day and age.
> >Where have the OS architects at Microsoft been for the last two decades?
> 
> That's just it.  In my (uninformed) opinion, Microsoft doesn't have
> any *architects*.  According to the introduction to _Inside OS/2_,
> this guy Letwin (the author of the book and "architect" of OS/2) is
> somebody Bill Gates met at a hacker conference and hired immediately.
> I doubt that he has any formal OS experience.  It is all just a hack.


Gordon Letwin was formerly responsible for the HDOS operating system from
Heath.  HDOS was actually a real OS when compared to something like CP/M.
It supported real device drivers among other things.  He had left Heath to
join Microsoft before I joined Zenith Data Systems in April 1981 but
evidence of his presence was still felt an respected.  I believe that he
had prior experience in OS's before Heath but don't remember.  You forget
(or perhaps you weren't born then) that almost everybody involved in micros
in the 70's were ``hackers'' (in the original sense of the word).
						Alan L. Pope
						alpope@sun.com