Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Prodos 16 Environments
Message-ID: <7084@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 14 Jan 88 10:40:34 GMT
References: <7064@brl-smoke.ARPA> <8Vuufsy00XoBEy809A@andrew.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 18

In article <8Vuufsy00XoBEy809A@andrew.cmu.edu> jm7e+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU ("Jeremy G. Mereness") writes:
>Why is it necessary that the only interface between the user and Prodos 16 is 
>the Finder?

It isn't!  ProDOS is not really much more than a bunch of subroutines
an application can call to perform file operations.  It also supplies
an interrupt handler and a few other on-demand facilities, but by no
means is it "in charge" of the computer, unlike many "real" operating
systems.

Any 16-bit Apple IIGS application can invoke ProDOS-16 features or
ignore them, depending on its requirements.  The main thing "built in"
about ProDOS-16 is that it helps dynamically load program segments
during execution.

There are other "shells" (generic user interfaces) available, for
example the APW shell, which unfortunately seems to be modeled after
VMS rather than UNIX.