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mac15

macrumors 68040
Dec 29, 2001
3,099
0
I just found out it stand for


Northern Telecom, don't ask how or why it is, I found out a PC friend
 

oldMac

macrumors 6502a
Oct 25, 2001
543
53
"New Technology"

If I recall correctly, it stands for "New Technology".

It started out as a joint project between Microsoft and IBM. The codename was "NT". Later, IBM and Microsoft couldn't agree on things and split the project in two.

Microsoft's half became "Windows NT" and IBM's half became "OS/2".
 

SilvorX

macrumors 68000
May 24, 2002
1,701
0
'Toba, Canada
Originally posted by mac15
I just found out it stand for


Northern Telecom, don't ask how or why it is, I found out a PC friend
lol ya it was known as Windows Northern Telecom and New Technology, Northern Telecom (aka nortel) cuz nortel helped develop NT i believe (thats wha i heard from a person who knows alot about puters)
 

mac15

macrumors 68040
Dec 29, 2001
3,099
0
thats strange, most Windows OSs are named after Canadian Places, and Apples are named after Animals
 

SilvorX

macrumors 68000
May 24, 2002
1,701
0
'Toba, Canada
Originally posted by awrc
New Technology - I'd take the Nortel thing with a large pinch of salt.
lol well it was ppl who knew alot about windows who told me northern telecom since NT was originally for server/networking/etc and nortel was a huge networking company n such till 2 years ago when they almost went bankrupt and when i used to be a windows fan i remember seeing lots of news headlines on the ms site about ms and nortel partnerships....

well windows codenames arent named after canadian cities, just the current ver of windows n the next couple versions of windows...
win 95: chicago
win nt: cairo
windows me: millennium
detroit: cancelled win 95 successor
Windows 6.0 (within the next 5 years): blackcomb
Windows XP: whistler
next version of windows: longhorn...longhorn whistler and blackcomb are all located a few hr drive from redmond, which are in the rocky mountains up in canada....
n theres dozens more, including one called bobcat...and tonnes that are names of planets n such
 

SilvorX

macrumors 68000
May 24, 2002
1,701
0
'Toba, Canada
Originally posted by MacCoaster

Huh? So 1.0, 2.0, 3.x, 95, 98, Millennium Edition, NT, 2000, and eXPerience are all Canadian places? Clarify please.
no, mac15 was just confused lol, whistler (aka hexpee) is the famous mountains and town up in canada...how dare they tarnish the famous skiing resort and town...the upcoming winblowz os in a few years longhorn is named after a cafe in whistler, and blackcomb is the name of the town right beside whistler....
 

jefhatfield

Retired
Jul 9, 2000
8,803
0
i am certified in windows nt 4.0

while it stands for new technology, a lot of people associate nt with networking as in nt server, nt workstation, etc

windows 2000 and the windows xp family are based on windows nt

but that is all fine and dandy, mac os 9 and os x rule:p
 

TEG

macrumors 604
Jan 21, 2002
6,621
170
Langley, Washington
Here's the Gospel Truth
(Note: I have family that works for Nortel, and several friends at Microsoft)

The "NT" in Windows NT stands for New Technology. Many of the new technologies developed that it supported were in the area of processors and networking. Untill Win 98, NT was the only version of Windows to be able to use Pentium Pro Processors, and NT 4 was the only Windows version for Solaris, PPC, Alpha and other high-end processors, not just the crappy x86 processors.

The reason that "NT" is connected to Nortel, is that NT is the ticker symbol of Nortel, and at one time NT was the logo for Nortel. Because of this, Nortel had copyrighted the "NT" so when Microsoft wanted to use it, they has to put a disclamer on the box saying that "NT" is a registed trademark of Northern Telecom.

Thats the truth.... and I'm stickin' to it.

TEG
(Former PC only user)
 

4409723

Suspended
Jun 22, 2001
2,221
0
Originally posted by Jays
NT = Neanderthal Technology

Aahah I thought it was for Network, or as somebody already said, Notwork. Neanderthal was pretty good though.
 

bwatson

macrumors newbie
Aug 9, 2002
5
0
Interesting fact, Win NT was written by the same developers who wrote VMS (an old non-MS operating system from way back).

If you add one letter to "VMS", you get "WNT".

V -> W
M -> N
S -> T

I think "New Technology" just conveniently fitted the letters.
 
Originally posted by SilvorX

no, mac15 was just confused lol, whistler (aka hexpee) is the famous mountains and town up in canada...how dare they tarnish the famous skiing resort and town...the upcoming winblowz os in a few years longhorn is named after a cafe in whistler, and blackcomb is the name of the town right beside whistler....
Hah, seriously? Interesting...
 

nixd2001

macrumors regular
Aug 21, 2002
179
0
UK
Originally posted by bwatson
Interesting fact, Win NT was written by the same developers who wrote VMS (an old non-MS operating system from way back).

If you add one letter to "VMS", you get "WNT".

V -> W
M -> N
S -> T

I think "New Technology" just conveniently fitted the letters.

I think it was Dave Cutler that MS hired in particular - he'd been responsible for the design of VMS as well, so I hear.
 

Bobd

macrumors member
Jan 10, 2002
39
0
When it was first announced, "NT" was being bashed and called "Nice try", "No, Thanks", and "Not Today"...
 

MisterMe

macrumors G4
Jul 17, 2002
10,709
69
USA
Re: "New Technology"

Originally posted by oldMac
If I recall correctly, it stands for "New Technology".

It started out as a joint project between Microsoft and IBM. The codename was "NT". Later, IBM and Microsoft couldn't agree on things and split the project in two.

Microsoft's half became "Windows NT" and IBM's half became "OS/2".

You are sort of correct, but you imply a timeline that is not correct. This stuff goes back a number of years, so my memory fades. At any rate, M$ and IBM codeveloped OS/2. It started out as MS-DOS 5 and IBM-DOS 5. (A few years later, both IBM and M$ shipped versions of DOS 5 and DOS 6 based on the old DOS codebase.) OS/2 was not ready when the IBM PS/2 line shipped. When OS/2 shipped, Presentation Manager, its GUI, was not ready.

In the meantime time, M$ had continued to work on Windows. IIRC M$ released Windows 3.0. OS/2 was not exactly blowing the market away. M$ announced that it would release a new version of Windows called Windows NT for "New Technology" with the Windows 3.0 GUI. It is my understanding that Win NT is OS/2 with an incompatible set of APIs. I have recently been informed that the APIs for text-based OS/2 applications remain a part of NT.

At any rate, after the announcement of NT, the relationship between IBM and M$ soured dramatically. M$ abandoned OS/2 with IBM becoming the sole developer of the OS. As part of the severance agreement, IBM was allowed use of the original Win NT APIs in OS/2. That is how IBM was able to develop in OS/2 a "better Windows than Windows."

Anyone is welcome to make corrections or additions what I have written--or, we can get back to talking about Macs;)
 

jaykk

macrumors 6502a
Jan 5, 2002
854
5
CA
I got the following news item by a quick search in Google.
"Although Microsoft presents NT as a homegrown OS, NT is actually much older than its official 1993 birthdate. NT contains architectural and design influences from another company's flagship OS. Interestingly, throughout the 1990s, Digital introduced many NT features to VMS, and Microsoft has added VMS developments to NT. For example, VMS featured native clustering support in 1984, and 64-bit memory and system APIs in 1996. Microsoft did not introduce clustering support to NT until late last year_and only on a limited scale_and several years might pass before Microsoft releases 64-bit NT."

Interesting..
Windows NT and VMS : The Rest of the story
 
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