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What does NT stand for?

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A. NT actually stands for Northern Telecom but Microsoft licensed it and in the Windows sense stands for New Technology. Its also interesting to note its heritage
RSX -> VMS -> ELN -> NT all major designs of David Cutler
Also VMS +1 letter = WNT (Windows NT) :-) (aka HAL and IBM in 2001)

Another theory is that the NT acronym orginally came from the Engineers working on it. The acronym stands for N-Ten, the code name for the i860 chip that NT was being tested on.


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Reader Comments
Are there any other possible definitions for the initials "NT" that you have heard of? I'm curious because this seems a little too simple for the technology involved. Thanks for your help.

Rick Matthews November 19, 2003


I was always told by IBM NT Kernel engineers that it stood for Non Trivial.

Anonymous User October 17, 2004


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