Oral History of Dave Cutler Part 2
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters cite it as the definitive long-form account of Cutler's career whenever VMS, NT, or Windows stability and lineage come up, usually alongside Part 1.
Recommended by 3 people across 3 different months, 2020 to 2026.
What it is
Second part of the Computer History Museum's 2016 oral history with Dave Cutler, interviewed by Grant Saviers. Cutler covers his path from DuPont and EXEC-II through DEC's RSX-11, VMS, and the cancelled Mica/Prism projects, to building Windows NT at Microsoft.
What people said
Recommends GeekyBear · 2020-09 · Hacker News · on “Windows XP source code has leaked”
>It was really really stable. Windows 2000 was the last version of the NT branch where Dave Cutler was in charge. He's a legend for a reason. [LINK] Computer History Museum long form interviews: Part 1 [LINK] Part 2 [this video]
Recommends randomifcpfan · 2023-10 · Hacker News · on “Dave Cutler on Windows [video]”
The Computer History Museum oral history interview with David Cutler is also very good: Part 1: [LINK] Part 2: [this video]
Recommends mesrik · 2026-10 · Hacker News · on “Moxnox 1.0: NT-Like, POSIX-Compatible OS Running Atop Btrfs”
It does, and for reason I'm assuming many already know why. But if you weren't joking and were living under a rock. Look up the guy, Dave Cutler, who were mostly responsible putting together both. [LINK] Youtube has many of his interviews. The Computer History Museum (CHM) two part is perhaps most extensive. Links below to these. [LINK] [this video]
Cites GeekyBear · 2020-11 · Hacker News · on ““Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs”: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm”
Dave Cutler was even more explicit about what was intended with the design of the XBox. If the user attempts to modify the system, it will brick itself. [this video]