Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL!TMPLee
From: TMPLee@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Pet Peeve
Message-ID: <891121220702.364524@DOCKMASTER.ARPA>
Date: 21 Nov 89 22:07:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 24

The reason people refer to GS/OS v 5.0 instead of 3.0 is twofold:

a) In most people's minds ALL the software on the system disk except for
P8 is regarded as part of the operating system for the GS, even though
technically speaking only the file labelled GSOS is GSOS.  Are the
tools, drivers, CDevs, fonts, etc.  part of the GS operating system or
aren't they?  On any mainframe software of that kind is generally
regarded as part of the operating system.

b) Probably more importantly, one never ever sees anything that calls
itself GSOS v3.0.  (I think you can hold some set of keys down when it's
booting to get the version number displayed, but I don't remember what
it is.)  At least when I start P8 I see something that gives a version
number 1.8, and I did get my current set of system software from a disk
that was labelled 5.0.

But you are right, it is more proper to talk about System Disk 5.0 and
most of the time that is probably what you do want to talk about unless
you are an expert because you never know which piece of software it is
that is causing a bug or actually in control of the hardware; I'll bet
if you did an instrumentation of the system you'd find that you spent
most of the time in the toolbox (and maybe drivers) and very little in
GSOS proper; how much in your applicaton would depend on what it was
doing.