What (who) is Macintosh file system - definition

FILE SYSTEM

MFSLives

Macintosh file system

<file system> A file on the Macintosh consists of two parts, called forks. The "data fork" contains the data which would normally be stored in the file on other operating systems. The "resource fork" contains a collection of arbitrary attribute/value pairs, including program segments, icon bitmaps, and parametric values. Yet more information regarding Macintosh files is stored by the Finder in a hidden file, called the "Desktop Database". Because of the complications in storing different parts of a Macintosh file in non-Macintosh file systems that only handle consecutive data in one part, it is common to only send the Data fork or to convert the Macintosh file into some other format before transferring it. (1996-03-03)

Mac OS

FAMILY OF OPERATING SYSTEMS FOR MACINTOSH COMPUTERS

Mac OS/History; Mac OS History; Apple Macintosh OS; Apple Macintosh operating system; Apple Macintosh Operating system; Apple Macintosh Operating System; Apple Mac Operating System; Apple Mac operating System; Apple Mac operating system; Mac operating system; Mac Operating system; Mac Operating System; Macintosh Operating System; Macintosh operating System; Macintosh operating system; Mac os; Macintosh OS; MAC OS; Mac os history; Mac OS history; Mac Os; Apple Mac OS; Timeline of Mac OS; Macintosh GUI; Mac Operating System version history; History of Mac OS; Mac OS; Versions of macOS; Macintosh operating systems

Macintosh Operating System

Synthetic file system

HIERARCHICAL INTERFACE TO NON-FILE OBJECTS THAT APPEAR AS IF THEY WERE REGULAR FILES

Synthetic Filesystem; Synthetic file; Pseudo file system

In computer science, a synthetic file system or a pseudo file system is a hierarchical interface to non-file objects that appear as if they were regular files in the tree of a disk-based or long-term-storage file system. These non-file objects may be accessed with the same system calls or utility programs as regular files and directories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_file_system

Wikipedia

Macintosh File System

Macintosh File System (MFS) is a volume format (or disk file system) created by Apple Computer for storing files on 400K floppy disks. MFS was introduced with the original Apple Macintosh computer in January 1984.

MFS is notable both for introducing resource forks to allow storage of structured data, and for storing metadata needed to support the graphical user interface of the classic Mac OS. MFS allows file names to be up to 255 characters in length, although Finder does not allow users to create names longer than 63 characters (31 characters in later versions). MFS is called a flat file system because it does not support a hierarchy of directories.

Folders exist as a concept on the original MFS-based Macintosh, but work completely differently from the way they do on modern systems. They are visible in Finder windows, but not in the open and save dialog boxes. There is always one empty folder on the volume, and if it is altered in any way (such as by adding or renaming files), a new Empty Folder appears, thus providing a way to create new folders. MFS stores all of the file and directory listing information in a single file. The Finder creates the illusion of folders, by storing all files as pairs of directory handles and file handles. To display the contents of a particular folder, MFS scans the directory for all files in that handle. There is no need to find a separate file containing the directory listing.

The Macintosh File System does not support volumes over 20 MB in size, or about 1,400 files. While this is small by today's standards, at the time it seemed very expansive when compared to the Macintosh's 400 KB floppy drive.

Apple introduced Hierarchical File System as a replacement for MFS in September 1985. In Mac OS 7.6.1, Apple removed support for writing to MFS volumes, and in Mac OS 8.0 support for MFS volumes was removed altogether. Although macOS has no built-in support for MFS, an example VFS plug-in from Apple called MFSLives provides read-only access to MFS volumes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh File System