Excerpted from a message dated 12-24-98, Ivan Todoroski to Francois
Thunus:

 IT>>   I wonder if EXT2FS and NTFS are this robust...

 FT> No idea about NTFS, but if I remember it well, m$ designed both
 FT> hpfs and ntfs, and ntfs hexadecimal code is the same as hpfs...

IT>  Well all I know is that it is designed by Gordon Letwin, but wasn't
  >  aware that he worked for MS. If he did, than I must admit that HPFS
  >  is probably THE BEST thing ever to come out of that place... or
  >  maybe it's the ONLY good thing?

Hi Ivan--

    Gordon Letwin was the MS chief architect on the joint IBM/MS
development of OS/2 v 1.0 (ca. 1985-87).  Probably the best book I have
seen describing OS/2 v 1.x to the average technical user is "The Design
of OS/2" by Gordon Letwin, Microsoft Press, ca. 1987.  There have been
other books with the same title, by other authors, published since. None
that I  have read are as well written as Letwin's.

    AFAIK, HPFS is not the _only_ good thing to come out of MS. but it
may well have been the last one :-).  I still use (on rare occasion) the
MS BASIC PDS v 7.1 compiler, which can put out 16-bit text-mode, OS/2
programs.  Unlike many later compilers, it includes VSAM file management
as a built-in capability.  (IIRC, HPFS first appeared on OS/2 v 1.1;
BASIC PDS was written for OS/2 v 1.0.)

    Regards,

        --Murray

___
 * MR/2 2.25 #120 * Never send a PM program to do a text-mode job

--- Maximus/2 2.02