[TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix

[Steve Nickolas]

On Sat, 21 Oct 2023, segaloco via TUHS wrote:

> Something this brings back to mind that I always wonder about with 
> Microsoft and their OS choices: So they went with Windows NT for their 
> kernel, scraped the Windows environment off the top of DOS and dolloped 
> it on top. Has there been any explanation over the years why they also 
> decided to keep the MSDOS CLI interface? It's not like the NT kernel 
> couldn't handle simple stuff like a UNIX-y shell, tools like grep and 
> sed, etc. and Microsoft had code in Xenix they probably could've 
> considered using for that. Was it not wanting to have any licensing 
> questions by avoiding anything that smelled like Xenix at all? Or was 
> the consumer base at the time that invested in the MSDOS environment 
> that handing them a Bourne shell with some ubiquitous UNIX tools 
> would've just been unworkable? Feels like a lost opportunity, they 
> could've had their kernel and their desktop environment and still given 
> folks a more robust CLI. Instead stuff like UWIN, Cygwin, etc. had to 
> come along and fill the void. That was something I was hoping he'd talk 
> about when I clicked, but I didn't catch anything particular about the 
> CLI choice.

They actually inherited the CLI from OS/2, didn't they?

-uso.