Tony Dye

NT on the Clipper

May 25, 1993; 15 years ago. 

Remember when Comdex and Windows World was an event that took place most springs in Atlanta?  That's where many of Microsoft's big announcements took place.  Windows 3.1 and Windows NT each got their first big public showing at this Atlanta event.

Now, a quick bit of history.  The original plan for Windows NT was for it to be somewhat hardware independent.  It was expected to run on many different processors, with Intel being just one of a bunch.  You may remember than NT was ported to MIPS and to ALPHA.  Not as well known is that NT was ported to other processors, including the Intergraph Clipper.  A year earlier, Intergraph and Microsoft had started down a path of partnership and I had the privilege of being right smack in the middle of it.

In 1993, way up on the 67th floor (I think) of the Peachtree Plaza hotel, Intergraph (specifically Bob Mueller and Tommy Steele) powered up Windows NT, running on the Clipper, and demoed it to Paul Maritz of Microsoft.  The whole event was maybe 15 minutes, or even less.  It was a huge success, at least as far as credibility was concerned.  Too bad that the Clipper's future was shortened.  It would have been nice to see some other processors still running NT.

 

A Day Worth Remembering

Today is such a great day in my memory.  I'm sure some of you non-Mac people are thinking of the event in 1981, but I'm thinking of just a year ago when I got to meet Kem Meyer for the first time, face-to-face :-)  Jason, I still envy you.

Trivia, and Old Age

Today is the anniversary of "New" Coke.  That sure fits with a future post I'm working on regarding "If we'd known then what we know now..."  As a former 2-liter a day, and then some, Coke drinker, I was one of those who really did NOT like even the idea of New Coke.  In my mind, it's still a fresh controversy.  But...as others often remind me...it helped me realize how old I am.  New Coke was introduced on this day in 19__.  Think about it a moment before you look it up -- do you have a good guess?  No reason to post your answer; anybody can find it easily...  Then again, comments are always welcomed.

How Big Was Your First VCR?

What did YOUR first VCR look like?  Here's the first commercial Videotape Recorder, from way back in 1956.  Do you recognize the one guy who's wearing coat and tie?

"Houston, We Have a Problem"

A little Sunday morning history trivia.  Thanks to the 1995 movie with Tom Hanks, just about everybody knows the story of Apollo 13.  But do you remember when it really happened?  It was on this day, in 19__.

Wow...that was a long time ago!  Any of you other old-timers remember where you were when you heard the announcement?

Remembering Xenix

February 27, 1984.  Seattle.  I was working in an R&D department and we were looking at operating systems for X86 processors.  Microsoft sponsored an event to tell all about their future vision.  DOS was coming to an end (took a while, didn't it?) and Microsoft was announcing the future.  At the time, IBM was working on OS/2, which Microsoft was mostly saying less-than-favorable things about.  What was Microsoft's answer?  Probably not what you think.  In 1984, the future had SCO Xenix penciled in.

Fast forward to 1992/1993 and the early days of Microsoft Exchange.  One of Microsoft's biggest internal Exchange deployment problems at that time was the painful elimination of all the Xenix-based back-end servers.

Up through mid-1990, much of my job was actually based on working with Xenix, although there was very little Microsoft connection at the time.  Kind of surprisingly, I miss those days.

Happy Birthday YouTube

YouTube turns three today.  What did we do with all our spare time before we had this service?!

Valentine's Day Memory

Just a quick little personal story here.  Today, Valentine's Day, is Trisha's and my anniversary.  Our 25th!  Well...actually that's not exactly true.  Today is the 25th anniversary of our first date.  Yup, that's right, our first date was on Valentine's day.  There's part of this story that we'll never fully understand, but the short version is: we have an arranged marriage (and I can highly recommend arranged marriages).  Trisha's family and my family grew up in the same church.  We actually knew each other, barely, in our teenage years.  Somehow, and this is the part where the story isn't quite clear, her father, or my father, or possibly even the two of them together, conspired to have us go on a date, and the date they arranged was at their church, in front of people we had known all our lives.  Talk about pressure!

Well, somehow we suvived it.  And...the rest, as they say...is history...

Happy Birthday General

One of my heros.  Happy 85th birthday.  An early transcript of a great historic event.

Thanks Danny!

Feb 4, 2004.  That's the day Danny Ybarra first did a little bit of work for Perimeter.  One way or another, he's been involved every since.  We appreciate you Danny!