We removed ads from OSNews. Donate to our fundraiser to ensure our future!
We all know the earlier versions of Windows NT were available not only for x86, but also for MIPS, Alpha, and PowerPC (and there were unreleased ports to SPARC and Clipper). While we have the operating systems archived and available, applications properly compiled for the non-x86 versions of Windows NT can be a bit harder to come by. For instance, while Microsoft Word for MIPS and Alpha have been available for a while, we apparently never had a copy of Microsoft Word for PowerPC archived.
Until now. Antoni Sawicki was pointed to an eBay auction for a copy of Microsoft Office Standard 4.2, and the photographed box clearly said it contained version for x86, Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC. He decided to buy it, and it did, indeed, contain the PowerPC version of Microsoft Word. Of course, he made this version of Office available online for posterity.
An excellent find, and good to see we have people willing to spend money just to ensure software isn’t lost to time.
In 2000 or 2001, I bought a small Alpha 21164 system to use it as a Linux server. It came with a complimentary Corel Draw for Alpha! Of course, using it would have required me to have a Windoes NT for Alpha license — or at least, a copy I could install.
Of course, that was several workplaces ago. I guess the box still exists somewhere, but procuring it for your little museum seems impossible ☺
I had a Thinkpad with a PowerPC, Windows NT, and Office NT as a result of favors done for the IBM PowerPC team. List price was something like $6000. I think it also ran Doom. It was a decent laptop when it came out and ran without issue. The PowerPC’s strength at that time was floating point math. My office also had Alpha & MIPS for Windows NT development. We worked with Byte Magazine for a PowerPC/Alpha/MIPS/Intel benchmark. Not long after the PowerPC launch, Intel came out with EDO RAM, which was a big improvement and neutralized the PowerPC performance edge. That was the end of mainstream PowerPC boxes.
This was at the time when IBM was working on running OS/2, Mac OS, and AIX UNIX on the same PowerPC concurrently. I wasn’t close to that effort and it got cancelled after delays.