From: ldo@nz.invalid   
      
   On Sat, 4 Oct 2025 23:28:41 +0100, chrisq wrote:   
      
   > On 10/1/25 06:05, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:   
   >>   
   >> On Wed, 1 Oct 2025 17:52:38 +1300, David Goodwin wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> You've yet to give a good reason to believe [Windows NT] isn't   
   >>> portable. The fact it has been released on six architectures and   
   >>> publicly demonstrated on a seventh would suggest you are wrong.   
   >>   
   >> The fact that none of them survived reinforces my point. The ports   
   >> survived only long enough for Microsoft to claim bragging rights, and   
   >> then expired not long after.   
   >   
   > Fwir, the discussion is about nt portability, or not. Not whether other   
   > architectures survived, boxes sold etc. Classic deflection..   
      
   I wasn’t the one trying to offer excuses for why particular NT ports   
   survived or not, based on the supposed popularity (or not) of the hardware   
   in question. I pointed out that Linux continued to support architectures   
   that were less successful in the marketplace, like Alpha and Itanium, long   
   after Microsoft had to abandon them. And it supports ones that are still   
   popular, like MIPS and POWER, again long after Microsoft had to admit   
   defeat.   
      
   So the common factor for the failure of NT on these architectures is not   
   whether they were successful in the marketplace or not; the common factor   
   was NT itself.   
      
   To repeat what I said further back:   
      
   The [NT] ports were difficult and expensive to create, and difficult and   
   expensive to maintain. In the end they were all just abandoned.   
      
   Also (with regard to NT not taking advantage of 64-bit Alpha):   
      
   Obviously it was just too hard for Windows NT to support a mix of 32-bit   
   and 64-bit architectures. So much for portability ...   
      
   > The fact that was ported to so many other architectures reflects the   
   > fact that it was designed with a HAL to enable just that ability.   
   > Quite profound for it's time, even if you hate windows in general.   
      
   Maybe the HAL was part of the problem? I’ve been trying to find a HAL-   
   equivalent in the Linux kernel, and there doesn’t seem to be one.   
      
   Consider the question: does a “hardware abstraction layer” abstract away   
   from device drivers as well? So drivers are supposed to be hidden away   
   below the HAL, not visible above it? But on Linux you have portable device   
   drivers, which can be compiled for different processor architectures to   
   access the same peripheral hardware, which saves having to write different   
   drivers for those peripherals for different architectures. Where does a   
   “HAL” fit into this?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)