Why wtf?
Microsoft started as a UNIX-based programming company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix
Hell you see remnants of it in the reserved filename list.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/naming-a-file?redirectedfrom=MSDN
Devices in windows are not typically “files” like they are in unix/linux… So why CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM0, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, COM¹, COM², COM³, LPT0, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, LPT9, LPT¹, LPT², and LPT³ are all reserved? Because they maintained compatibility with features businesses used at the time… and never deprecated the function.
Edit:
Why are we downvoting literal computer history? It is a known fact that Windows started on Unix systems. It’s a known fact that they released their own BSD-based software up to and including a full fledged Unix-based OS, and it’s a known fact that MS-DOS 1 and 2 were both Unix compatible. This is LITERALLY the definition of “roots”. Are we so touchy here that we can’t acknowledge actual computing history?
Hmm, I always thought MS was founded to steal/modify MS DOS. Interesting that they briefly did Unix stuff, but I still take issue with the way op phrased it. “Their Unix roots” makes it sound like they were heavily invested in Unix and carried that forward even into windows. I don’t know if they used any of that code in windows, but if they did you’d never know it by using dos or any windows version I’ve seen. Even despite both having command line interfaces, almost everything is different from Unix except the command “cd”, to my recollection.
“Started as”
Yeah, no. Yes Xenix was a thing but it would be incorrect to say that it ever was their main product.
I don’t think anyone has ever hinted on that NT has a unix code base except for some “borrowed” networking code from bsd.
it would be incorrect to say that it ever was their main product.
They made several full versions of it… It was not simply a one off product.
While Xenix 2.0 was still based on Version 7 Unix,[30] version 3.0 was upgraded to a Unix System III code base,[12]: 9 [31][32] a 1984 Intel manual for Xenix 286 noted that the Xenix kernel had about 10,000 lines at this time.[10]: 1–7 It was followed by a System V R2 codebase in Xenix 5.0 (a.k.a. Xenix System V).[33]
Also,
Microsoft’s Chris Larson described MS-DOS 2.0’s Xenix compatibility as “the second most important feature”.[38] His company advertised DOS and Xenix together, describing MS-DOS 2.0 (its “single-user OS”) as sharing features and system calls with Xenix (“the multi-user, multi-tasking, Unix-derived operating system”), and promising easy porting between them.[39]
So they were simultaneously created AND interoperable (from a program development perspective). This was a full fledged item.
Edit: to elaborate a little better. If they were simultaneously developed… and interoperable. And one item is Unix-based outright. Then it’s safe to say that the other item (MS-DOS) in this case is also pretty steeped in Unix roots.
