Developing Windows NT applications for PowerPC microprocessor based systems

Abstract

IBM, Microsoft, and Motorola collaborated to port the Microsoft Windows NT operating system to the PowerPC microprocessor architecture. Combining Windows NT with the PowerPC architecture introduces high performance, low cost reduced instruction set computing (RISC) to the personal computer desktop. Developing Windows applications can be a confusing process for developers unfamiliar with the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems. This confusion is intensified when developers consider running their Windows NT application on multiple hardware architectures. Several major factors must be considered when developing for Windows NT, including which software development tools to use, which applications are compatible across the multiple platforms, which application programming interface to use, and which features are available on each platform. The paper identifies some of the issues involved in porting existing Windows applications as well as developing new applications to take advantage of the Windows NT/PowerPC microprocessor combination.