History
When IBM and Microsoft were codeveloping OS/2, they realized that File Allocation Tables, FATs, did not offer the features a modern OS would require, and Microsoft began developing the High Performance File System, codenamed Pinball.
Instead of coding it inside the kernel, as FAT was, Microsoft developed a "driver-based" Filesystem API that could allow them and other developers to add new filesystems to the kernel without needing to modify it.
When Microsoft stopped working on OS/2, IBM continued using the IFS interface and Microsoft implemented a similar one in Windows NT.
Read more about this topic: Installable File System
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“As History stands, it is a sort of Chinese Play, without end and without lesson.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“These anyway might think it was important
That human history should not be shortened.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)