Every word he says about DEC is the truth. I had the great fortune of being hired by DEC in 1976, until 1989. My first job. It truly was an Engineer's company. It allowed me to learn and grow. It was a unique company.
Dave Cutler is one of my personal heroes and this series of videos deserves a lot more views. In the 1980s I worked on VAX 11/780, MicroVax II, 3800 and 4000 systems and later in the mid 1990s I worked for Microsoft Australia supporting NT 3.x and later NT 4.0 systems.
It's fantastic that Dave Cutler agreed to do this interview, since he is well know for keeping out of the limelight. Having read the book "Show-Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft" I really wanted to find out more about Dave, but it's really hard to find that much about him. I found little bits here and there, such as ZDNet, but nothing that focused on Cutler specifically. Thus this interview is very welcomed indeed.
I dont mean to be offtopic but does any of you know a way to log back into an Instagram account..? I was dumb forgot the account password. I would love any help you can offer me
@Maximilian Julian Thanks for your reply. I found the site thru google and I'm trying it out now. Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will get back to you later with my results.
I'm glad Dave mentioned VAX-ELN. I didn't know that he was that deeply involved with it. VAX-ELN was what I used to develop VAX Camera in 87 while working at DEC in Santa Clara. I did it as a side project. VAX Camera was productized in 1990.
VMS and NT were such solid well-designed operating systems. It's a shame that everyone in Unix/Linux land has a misconception that Unix is the best way, and never consider studying VMS to see what they might be missing...
Well, not everyone had access to a VAX back in the 90s. A lot of schools were changing over to UNIX workstations made by Sun or PCs running MS-DOS / Windows 3.1. However, all the folks I have met who spent time working on VMS based systems seemed to enjoy them and were very productive producing useful software on them. And we all know what comes after VMS … LOL
Actually VAX were very common, but the lack of compose-able tools was a problem. The micro vax was slow so most people moved to Sun/HP/IBM and DEC collapsed.
As a teen I found the "everything is a file" concept very elegant. Now I believe the object oriented approach is even more elegant, but Windows didn't make it very obvious for anyone except professional programmers for too long: Before the PowerShell and .NET days you had to go all in into C++ programming to get to play around with those NT objects. VBScript was kind of a thing, but bulky and required too much effort to get into. The *nix shell on the other hand provided an easy way to play around with everything represented by files from the early on.
By the mid 1980's DEC was out of control. It was plowing money into 3 different architectures and had ignored the ascendancy of the PC until it was way too late. Ken Olsen should have read 'Only the Paranoid Survive'.
Hello Dave you don’t remember me but back in the 60, you had a beautiful Mustang it was great my cousin told me you were still around I went to SJWillis in Victoria anyways hoping you are doing great and by the looks like you are I was very surprised when Linda told me you were still around my real name is carol take care now we are not getting any younger I now living in Edmonton Alberta I used to watch football but did not know that you were in it I did remember that you did mention that you did like football I am now just about 77 yrs old Take care of yourself and your-family bye for now
Not the best interviewer. Interviewer Grant Saviers should ask Dave Cutler for more key details and dates as Dave relates his life story for 3 hours. Grant just lets Dave ramble on about his memories, which I still found very interesting as Dave is a good natural speaker. But for instance, when Dave is talking about his time at college, I wondered 1) did Dave graduate from college? 2) what subject exactly is Dave's degree? 3) what year did Dave graduate? 4) did Dave get a Batchelor's degree, or a Master's or what? Grant should have pinned Dave down on these historical details, which are usually found in a professional historical documentary. I think I gathered that Dave graduated in 1965 from Olivet College in Michigan with a Batchelor's degree in mathematics. But I can't say for sure because Grant did not ask Dave for those key milestones for the historical record. Later during his DEC years, Grant should have asked Dave what language Dave used to write RSX-11 and the PL/1 compiler? I'm guessing assembly language - maybe MACRO-11? What language is Windows NT coded in? Is VMS written in C? Programmers would love to know those working details from Dave to bring his work to life.
I can tell you that the Windows NT kernel used to be written entirely in C, with a small amount of assembly language in key parts. Many of the user-mode components (parts of the GUI, among other things) were written in C++. These days I wouldn't be surprised if there are some other languages in there as well, but I'm no longer in the loop.
@@flashdy Which languages were used to write Windows NT is exactly the kind of detail that programmers would like to hear from Dave Cutler - right from the horse's mouth. Grant Saviers should have asked Dave that, and a good follow-up question would have been why did you choose those languages? Programmers would love to know that kind of technical info from Dave Cutler, who after all, is famous as an arch programmer. Maybe Grant is not a programmer, so he don't think like a programmer. Whatever the reason, this interview has been a missed opportunity in those respects. How do you know NT was written in C, C++ and assembly language? You sound like you worked for Microsoft on NT yourself? Or did you hear this from a friend who did work on NT? Did you ever meet Dave Cutler?
@@ShazzPotz I did work on Windows NT in the early 2000s. While I wasn't there when the kernel was being written, I did read through a lot of the code at that time. I did not meet Cutler in person (though I did witness some "interesting" interactions with him), but the folks I worked with had all worked with him in the early NT days and I heard many stories.
Every word he says about DEC is the truth. I had the great fortune of being hired by DEC in 1976, until 1989. My first job. It truly was an Engineer's company. It allowed me to learn and grow. It was a unique company.
1:26:29 for those curious.
This man is a genius, he did not do a CS degree nor a phD and yet wrote OSes and compilers, wow!
Yep.. amazing!!
Dave Cutler is one of my personal heroes and this series of videos deserves a lot more views. In the 1980s I worked on VAX 11/780, MicroVax II, 3800 and 4000 systems and later in the mid 1990s I worked for Microsoft Australia supporting NT 3.x and later NT 4.0 systems.
It's fantastic that Dave Cutler agreed to do this interview, since he is well know for keeping out of the limelight. Having read the book "Show-Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft" I really wanted to find out more about Dave, but it's really hard to find that much about him. I found little bits here and there, such as ZDNet, but nothing that focused on Cutler specifically. Thus this interview is very welcomed indeed.
I dont mean to be offtopic but does any of you know a way to log back into an Instagram account..?
I was dumb forgot the account password. I would love any help you can offer me
@Maximilian Julian Thanks for your reply. I found the site thru google and I'm trying it out now.
Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will get back to you later with my results.
@Maximilian Julian it did the trick and I now got access to my account again. I am so happy!
Thank you so much you saved my ass !
@Kason Kyrie happy to help xD
Simply one of the best software engineer.
I'm glad Dave mentioned VAX-ELN. I didn't know that he was that deeply involved with it. VAX-ELN was what I used to develop VAX Camera in 87 while working at DEC in Santa Clara. I did it as a side project. VAX Camera was productized in 1990.
Great to listen to Dave. I loved reading Show Stopper and it is great to hear him in person.
VMS and NT were such solid well-designed operating systems. It's a shame that everyone in Unix/Linux land has a misconception that Unix is the best way, and never consider studying VMS to see what they might be missing...
Well, not everyone had access to a VAX back in the 90s. A lot of schools were changing over to UNIX workstations made by Sun or PCs running MS-DOS / Windows 3.1. However, all the folks I have met who spent time working on VMS based systems seemed to enjoy them and were very productive producing useful software on them. And we all know what comes after VMS … LOL
Actually VAX were very common, but the lack of compose-able tools was a problem.
The micro vax was slow so most people moved to Sun/HP/IBM and DEC collapsed.
I guess we have many concepts from VMS/Mica in Windows NT.
As a teen I found the "everything is a file" concept very elegant.
Now I believe the object oriented approach is even more elegant, but Windows didn't make it very obvious for anyone except professional programmers for too long:
Before the PowerShell and .NET days you had to go all in into C++ programming to get to play around with those NT objects. VBScript was kind of a thing, but bulky and required too much effort to get into.
The *nix shell on the other hand provided an easy way to play around with everything represented by files from the early on.
What a fascinating interview.
Legend
21:30: “I had to figure out why something didn’t work, which meant I had to figure out how it worked…”
Such low number of views, he is one of the GOD of computer engineering (in the Operating System domain).
thank you for all you've done.
By the mid 1980's DEC was out of control. It was plowing money into 3 different architectures and had ignored the ascendancy of the PC until it was way too late. Ken Olsen should have read 'Only the Paranoid Survive'.
The loss of Digital Equipment is a crime in American business history.
DEC is a classic case of Founder's Syndrome.
Amazing man!!!
Hello Dave you don’t remember me but back in the 60, you had a beautiful Mustang it was great my cousin told me you were still around I went to SJWillis in Victoria anyways hoping you are doing great and by the looks like you are I was very surprised when Linda told me you were still around my real name is carol take care now we are not getting any younger I now living in Edmonton Alberta I used to watch football but did not know that you were in it I did remember that you did mention that you did like football I am now just about 77 yrs old
Take care of yourself and your-family bye for now
Rita is my games name for computers
My hero.
Dave cutler
Not the best interviewer. Interviewer Grant Saviers should ask Dave Cutler for more key details and dates as Dave relates his life story for 3 hours. Grant just lets Dave ramble on about his memories, which I still found very interesting as Dave is a good natural speaker. But for instance, when Dave is talking about his time at college, I wondered 1) did Dave graduate from college? 2) what subject exactly is Dave's degree? 3) what year did Dave graduate? 4) did Dave get a Batchelor's degree, or a Master's or what? Grant should have pinned Dave down on these historical details, which are usually found in a professional historical documentary. I think I gathered that Dave graduated in 1965 from Olivet College in Michigan with a Batchelor's degree in mathematics. But I can't say for sure because Grant did not ask Dave for those key milestones for the historical record.
Later during his DEC years, Grant should have asked Dave what language Dave used to write RSX-11 and the PL/1 compiler? I'm guessing assembly language - maybe MACRO-11? What language is Windows NT coded in? Is VMS written in C? Programmers would love to know those working details from Dave to bring his work to life.
I can tell you that the Windows NT kernel used to be written entirely in C, with a small amount of assembly language in key parts. Many of the user-mode components (parts of the GUI, among other things) were written in C++. These days I wouldn't be surprised if there are some other languages in there as well, but I'm no longer in the loop.
@@flashdy
Which languages were used to write Windows NT is exactly the kind of detail that programmers would like to hear from Dave Cutler - right from the horse's mouth. Grant Saviers should have asked Dave that, and a good follow-up question would have been why did you choose those languages? Programmers would love to know that kind of technical info from Dave Cutler, who after all, is famous as an arch programmer. Maybe Grant is not a programmer, so he don't think like a programmer. Whatever the reason, this interview has been a missed opportunity in those respects.
How do you know NT was written in C, C++ and assembly language? You sound like you worked for Microsoft on NT yourself? Or did you hear this from a friend who did work on NT? Did you ever meet Dave Cutler?
@@ShazzPotz I did work on Windows NT in the early 2000s. While I wasn't there when the kernel was being written, I did read through a lot of the code at that time. I did not meet Cutler in person (though I did witness some "interesting" interactions with him), but the folks I worked with had all worked with him in the early NT days and I heard many stories.