RE: IBM loses its Unix license - Jun. 16, 2003

> The problem is that one process could CAUSE a GPF in another 
> process simply by messing with a pointer.  Nothing stopped 
> you from wiping out entire other processes...

Ah, my mistake, you meant *that* kind of memory protection.

> OS/2 eliminated this problem by making sure programs 
> could not access each other's memory. 

Yes, OS/2 did a fine job of this, but it didn't quite 'eliminate' it completely 
- remember the very rare blue 'Trap' d & e screens [ yes folks, Microsoft even 
'stole' the BSoD :) ] ? But of course, IBM had a great model to take notes from 
when designing OS/2; MVS.

And IIRC, didn't the chief architect for WindowsNT (David someone ?), come from 
DEC with his head full of the VAX operating system (VMS) ideas ?

--phil