Windows NT

Windows NT started life as NT OS/2. Oringally it was a future thinking version of OS/2 that would be portable, and was targeted for the comming RISC cpu's. The goal was to design a microkernel OS that could run 32 bit POSIX binaries, 16 bit OS/2 1.x binaries, 16 bit MS-DOS & Windows binaries with an improved 32bit OS/2 API & Windowing system. Microsoft hired Dave Cutler away from Digitial to help with the implementation of the OS.

NT OS/2 was originally targeted to the Intel i860 cpu. This was done to keep Windows NT portable, and not fall into i386'isims into the original base source. This is where the NT in NT comes from, processor they used was called the "N-Ten" from the i860 XR processor. It was quickly apparent though that the i860 was NOT going to be a good workstation CPU, and the effort was quickly moved to the MIPS CPU, and Microsoft built their own motherboard design the JAZZ.

However after the release of Windows 3.0, Microsoft started to shift the primary API of NT OS/2 to the Windows API. The 16 bit emulation for OS/2 applications remained, however the Graphical Interface for OS/2 programs became a seperate product. This started the rift that would end the Microsoft IBM collaboration.

With NT OS/2 renamed to Windows NT, they started to make large strides into bringing the system live, and by 1993 ............ (this needs more flesh!)