Re: Never Got Used To Those New-Fangled VMS Filename Extensions ...

On 28 Jul 2024 13:23:16 -0000
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Michael S  <already5chosen@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Sun, 28 Jul 2024 02:50:26 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
 

=20
(And of course Dave Cutler took .EXE along with other VMS-isms with
him to Windows NT, but that=E2=80=99s another story.)
=20 

>
And of course you made it up.
Microsoft introduced .exe extension for relocatable executives back
in 1982 (MS-DOS 1.25). 6+ years before they hired Cutler and 11 years
before shipment of the first Cutler's Microsoft OS. 

 
That was Seattle Business Computing whose product was bought out by
Microsoft and became MS-DOS.  SBC basically made a quick and dirty
copy of Gary Kildall's CP/M on the cheap without really understanding
all the features they were copying.  But one of the things they copied
well were the file extensions including .EXE for executables.
>

According to my understanding of Wikipedia article, the OS that
Microsoft bought from Seattle Computer Products and that they
published as PC-DOS had no support for relocatable executives. The only
supported format for programs was non-relocatable .com format.
Support for .exe format was added approximately a year later by
Microsoft's programmers, most likely by Mark Zbikowski, who was a young
guy the never worked for Digital Research or for Seattle Computer
Products.

CP/M itself was modelled after RT-11 which is where Kildall got the
idea for the .EXE extension.
--scott

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