The Mind Behind Windows: Dave Cutler
Dave's Garage4 HN recommenders · 2023–2026
1M views · interview · evergreen · Uploaded 2023-10-21
Dave Plummer interviews Dave Cutler, architect of VMS and Windows NT, in a roughly three-hour conversation about his career and the history of Windows.
Recommended as a long, excellent first-hand interview with a legendary OS designer, though some note it is light on technical detail.
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12 comments from Hacker News
Was the origin of 'NT' in 'Windows NT' really New Technology? Some suggest that the name might have originated from the Intel i860 CPU. Originally, NT was targeted at the Intel i860 CPU, codenamed N10 (or "N-Ten"). Dave Cutler's put to rest that it was 'New Technology' [VIDEO]
If you haven't already seen it some story's from Andy Goldstein[1]. The quality of OpenVMS is really something else, also repeated from Dave Cutler[2]. [1] [LINK] [2] [VIDEO]
Because the userspace, old and baroque it is, is the compatibility layer for the existing apps. Not the kernel. The kernel is a very nice piece of work, but it come from slightly different assumptions, than the reality turned out to need. Btw, the recent Dave Cutler interview ( [VIDEO] ) is great. Worth the 3 hours it takes.
Check out this interview with Dave Cutler by Dave Plummer: [VIDEO] (from 02:03:00) Oh, and if someone can lipread, the audio mutes at 02:06:55 :-)
That's not his channel, its a different Dave. However, there is an excellent 3 hour long interview with Dave Cutler on that channel. [VIDEO]
There’s a fantastic interview on YouTube with Dave Cutler. It’s 3 hours long but there are a few 10 minute highlight clips on the same channel. [VIDEO]
judging from how i've read other people describe him, Dave Cutler's personality seems antithecal to memoirs or biographies, from what I've read he seems to be very much like John Carmack in his total lack of sentimentality. Thankfully some enterprising people have managed to get him to sit infront of a camera, but its pretty light on the nitty gritty technical aspects: - Computer history museum interview: [LINK] - David Plummer's interview: [VIDEO]
Here's a direct link: [VIDEO] "New Technology", if you want to search the transcript. Per Dave, marketing did not want to use "NT" for "New Technology" because they thought no one would buy new technology.
His series on YouTube, Dave's Garage, has really helped me to conceptualize Operating Systems in the past that I used, but didn't really fully understand. I started with Atari DOS, but moved to the 286 roughly around the time it started to become popular, along with MS-DOS. I'm 45 now, so didn't think about things as deeply back then, as far as constraints and why things may have been built the way they were. I think his series really does a great job at looking into both technology and company politics (especially his time at Microsoft). [VIDEO]
What's interesting is that Cutler said in an interview that initially he talked to Gates but wasn't interested until Ballmer swayed him in. with a few minutes of pretext: [VIDEO]
On his garage interview, he mentioned nowadays having fun with XBox Cloud hardware running Azure Linux. [VIDEO]
I have read that, yeah it also shows a lot how things changed. As per his interview on Dave's Garage, besides being of an age where he really doesn't need to work, at the time he was involved on getting Linux running on XBox on Azure, apparently Microsoft uses idle consoles from XBox Cloud for AI. [VIDEO]