I felt NT was an apt comparison because not only is it the basis for the current Windows, it also was their first 32-bit offering, i.e. where stuff got serious. 16-bit Windows was a fairly different beast. 9x was certainly influential but (1) is now dead and (2) came after NT, borrowed lots from NT in the beginning. In light of this, drawing comparisons between 1.0 and Win8 doesn't seem all that appropriate to me.

I see where you are coming from.

I guess my hesitation was caused by the assumption that while windows before NT was all 16 bit / 32 bit hybrid; it's API's are still essentially the same which is what you would care about when re-platting an API.

However I will concede my argument like a true gentlemen, as I now realize the ABI is what we should care about. It is almost certainly different even if the API's haven't fluxed that much, and that is what a re-platt project would most care about.

Windows vista, 7 or 8 are based on Windows NT: they don't have much in common with Windows 1.0.

Just like Mac OS X is a rethinking of Mac OS based on NEXTStep and doesn't have much in common with Mac OS or even system 1.

So yeah, I think the parent's comparison is correct.