Windows NT - what NT stands for?

[Usul]

What does NT was supposed to mean in the beginning?
I know that MS official policy now is nothing, but back when they developed NT3...

I heard New Technology, and looked fine to me, till somebody told me it was fro Morthern Telecom, from who MS bought a liece of the kernel's code ( networking part), and this looks good too....

It's beginning to bug me....

 

[Blayze]

Ive always heard that it stands for New Technology

 

[2ndDawn]

I have to agree with Blayze, I've always heard it as "New Technology". Maybe once in a blue-moon have I heard it stand for "Networked Technology", but mostly the former of the two.

 

[IamDavid]

I've always know it as Network Terminal. Might be wrong though.

 

[addragyn]

New Technology it is. Check a ms bio book if you want. Was to diferentiate it from the dos based windows variety which at that time was 3.1

 

[dcdomain]

New technology... which seems outdated now, perhaps thats why they changed it to Windows 2000. Wonder what Whistler will be called, Windows 2000SE?

 

[Priit]

AFAIK NT="Neanderthal Technology"

 

[Sunner]

New Technology.

Makes the little text under the Win2K logo in the boot splash screen seem sorta dumb.
"Built on New Technology Technology"

 

[WoundedWallet]

"Needy Technology"?

 

[AndyHui]

New Technology.....as in NTFS = New Technology File System

 

[yos]

It stands for "New Technology". This was drilled into our heads in my freshman "Intro to IT" class 5 years ago. Some believed it was Network technology... probably could mean that...


-the Yos

 

[MstrChase]

NT stands for Northern Telecom. It is in the MS copyright statement for Windows NT.

 

[Escalade]

I get a chuckle every time I see the Windows 2000 start up screen - it says:


<< Built on NT Technology >>


New Technology Technology!

Reminds me of a restaurant called 'The La Trattoria' (aka 'The The Trattoria').

 

[claw]

It's definitely &quot;New Technology&quot;... I remember reading about it when NT3 first came out.

 

[Odeen]

There was a thing about that in the ARF (Abort, Retry, Fail?) section of PC Magazine right when NT 3 came out.. the one moniker still sticks in my mind:

Next Terror

 

[Bozo]

Not Today

Bozo

 

[T4NNER]

It is New Technology.

 

[stash]

Damn, I thought it was &quot;Nice Try&quot;

Seriously, I read in Mark Minasi's NT Bible that it really doesnt stand for anything, even with all the speculation over the years. The closest that it could come to meaning anything is &quot;Networking&quot; since it was introduced as MS's first NOS.

 

[TonyRic]

When MS was coding NT and decided on the name it was an acronym for &quot;New Technology&quot; but, those of us OS/2 evangelists and others that disliked MS called it Nice Try or other things... This was because NT 3.1 REALLY sucked and 3.5 wasn't much better... It wasn't until 3.51 when NT actually became a force in the industry and even then not really until Version 4...

 

[edblor]

New Technology!

Nothing more, nothing less....

Edblor

 

[Usul]

MstrChase:
Do you have any refernce/source you can quote for us?

 

[jeans2nd]

Newton's Telecom Dictionary (by Harry Newton) 14th Updated &amp; Expanded Edition, ISBN 1-57820-023-7, March 1998, page 502 : 1. Network termination. ...represents the termination point of a Virtual Channel, Virtual Path, or Virtual Path/Virtual Channel at the UNI (user network interface). 2. New Technology, usually known as Windows NT. It's a new operating system from Microsoft ..... NTFS stand for New Technology File System. Who said these Microsoft engineers were creative ??????

 

[Cyph3r]

NT does indeed stand for New Technology, but many people have wondered as to why it is called that, it just seems very dumb..which it is..

The real story behind Windows NT is that it was designed by the same guy/group which designed VMS..remember VMS?? Well anyways, they wanted to make a joke on VMS, so they decided to increment each of those characters in VMS by one..so V->W, M->N, S->T..so VMS->WNT..that works out great cuz W in the WNT could stand for Windwos, but they were stuck with NT..so they left it as that and made a retarded attempt at putting 2 words together to make it seem like they meant to do it all along..

Well..anyways..that's WNT's history..Regards

 

[jeans2nd]

Cyph3r - That made my day. And I have no doubt but that it is true! Thanks!

 

[CQuinn]

It's not true IMO, but &quot;makes for good copy&quot;
as they say in the newspaper business.
IIRC the first announcements for the OS weren't even on Windows;
NT was based on the original split between MS and IBM on
the future development of OS/2. IBM kept the old code, and the
rights to release OS/2 version 2, MS took the ideas for how the
OS would run on the next generation of systems.
Originally (for about a month) they were going to call it OS/2 ver. 3;
then they decided on OS/2 NT
(The NT representing New Technology beyond the DOS/Windows 3.x base
that was then the PC standard).

Later, somebody at MS decided it should still share the legacy of the
existing product line, and thus &quot;Windows NT&quot; was born
(or paper launched as it were).

And yes, most people at the time realized that the term &quot;New Technology&quot; would
be obsolete by the time the OS would actually make it out. Which is probably
one of the reasons that NT *nowadays* just means a type of OS that is based
on or evolved from the original design ideas that MS put out.