Shelling out instructions

To get the general idea of what a shell is, I think it is best to think of an egg. You have the outside shell that gives you access to the inside parts of the egg. When applying this to computer terms it is very similar. The shell part of the operating system gives you access to the usable parts. By this I mean that you are able to activate your programs and such using the shell.

The most common shell now is most likely Windows Explorer. It has turned what was once a bit complicated in early versions of Windows into an easy to use operating system that can be found in use around the world. Windows first shell was a program manager, that allowed you to group together programs for easy access, but it was hard to use unless you knew what you were doing.

The first shell that I can remember using is the DOSShell. In the old DOS command line interface in the later versions you could type in dosshell and enter into a file manager that gave you easier access into the programs you were trying to use.

Another shell that I had the pleasure of working with was called GEOWORKS. I don't think it was a very well, although it was one of the easiest shells I ever used. GEOWORKS allowed you to make buttons that you could click on to go directly into the programs you wanted to use. There was no such thing as double-clicking, and you were able to set it up the way you wanted.