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WindowsNT was the other operating system of that time.

That's way way later. UNIXes were the ones running in 70s and 80s. WindowsNT and Linux only later came to take a slice and, still later on, Linux won the day. How anyone would consider UNIX "niche" is beyond me.

In the other direction then, IBM mainframes.

IBM mainframes added a UNIX subsystem in the 1990s, starting with UNIX for MVS, nowadays z/OS UNIX.

DEC's VAX/VMS became Open VMS when UNIX/POSIX support was added in the early 1990's as well.

Other mainframe systems added similar POSIX environments.

The way Windows NT OS linage works isn't something novel, it is how mainframes have introduced multiple OS personalities and virtualisation modes since the late 70's.

With Win32, OS/2 and POSIX subsystems.

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