MPW Shell
The MPW Shell featured redirection of output to files, and to windows. If a file were open, the output would go to the file and to the open window. This redirection of output required significant patching out of the file system calls so that tools need not do anything special to inherit this feature: the MPW Shell did all of the work.
The MPW Shell command language was based on the Unix csh language, but was extended to support the main features of the Macintosh GUI. It had simple commands to create menus, dialogs (prompts), and new shell windows. The cursor could be controlled, and MPW scripts or tools could easily be attached to a menu item. Command key shortcuts could be specified. Window size and location could be controlled. These features were popular in commercial production environments, where complicated build and packaging processes were all controlled by elaborate scripts.
The shell had some important differences from its Unix counterparts. For instance, the classic Mac OS had nothing comparable to Unix fork, so MPW tools were effectively called as subroutines of the shell; only one could be running at any one time, and tools could not themselves run other tools.
Read more about this topic: Macintosh Programmer's Workshop
Famous quotes containing the word shell:
“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
—Isaac Newton (1642–1727)