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.

 

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?

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?!

VMware Lunch & Learn, February 18

Just a reminder that we DO have plans for a VMware lunch & learn on Monday, Feb 18.  If you're interested in attending, and haven't already told me you're coming, please post a comment here or send me an email (tonydye at perimeter dot org).  Names I already have on my list:

• Richard Dolan
• Tony Dye
• Brandon Huff
• Bill Lloyd
• Gary Nichols or designate
• David Thames
• Jeffrey Thompson
• Erik Truax
• Steve Walsman

From the original invite:

For those of you in and near Atlanta, would you be interested in a lunch 'n' learn session with some of the local VMware technical people (with a minimum of sales pressure)?  Steve Walsman has volunteered to help coordinate such a meeting, and he's got the connections to do it.  This could end up looking a bit like Jason Powell's EqualLogic/SAN/VMware discussion at Granger, or it could be completely different.  Think of this as a "If I had a VMware rep to talk with, I'd ask..." session.  So...if you did have a VMware rep sitting with you, what might you want to ask?

Anybody Remember Lisa?

January 19, 1983.  The Apple Lisa was announced.  Supposedly, the first computer, or at least the first "personal" computer, with a GUI.  $9,995 was the starting price!  Motorola 68000 CPU at a blazing 5MHz clock speed.  I remember getting a close up look at one, while it was still fairly new, but never really did anything with it.  There were about 100,000 produced.  Wonder where they are now?

Life at 1024x768

Since switching to an X61 notebook (rather than tablet), I've been forced into the 1024x768 world.  It's interesting, I can remember a few years ago when our staff-wide standard was 800x600, and we were worried about some of our, um, "over 29" people having problems with the size of things if we went UP to 1024x768.  Well...now I'm on about the smallest screen I've used in many years, and yes, things are small on it, but what I'd give to be able to make them a bit smaller and go 1280x1024, or even higher.  Do you know how many websites and blog sites don't word-wrap well at 1024 wide, even in full screen?

If you're in the market for a notebook or tablet, even with a small screen, look at the specs.  You may want a higher resolution, even if you're not using an external monitor.

Rembering MIX

January 6, 1880 is Tom Mix’s birthday.  You might be thinking, who?!  He was an early movie cowboy.  He was also a bit of the inspiration for the programing language (and/or computer) called MIX, which was created by Donald Knuth and described in, and used for, many examples in his books in the series The Art of Computer Programming (TAOCP).

I used MIX for a few classes at Georgia Tech, and, for the most part, it was my first Assembly language, even if it wasn't quite for a "real" computer.  (I got to sit in the computer room that housed the Burroughs 5500 at Tech, and that sure seemed like a real computer)  That start moved me toward other assembly languages, which prepared me for my first 8080-based machine, and ultimately led to me into the PC world.  Ahhh...nostalgia...

MinistryTECH - Four Months Away

Just a reminder -- MinistryTECH is only four months away.  Have you committed?

Also, we're still looking for an OKC host site for a RoundTable on April 5. 

Happy Birthday Intel 4004

November 16, 1971, the Intel 4004 was introduced.  Roughly 2300 transistors and a clock speed of about 100 KHz. Things have sure changed in the 36 years since then!