[TUHS] Quick Question: Early Filesystems and Name/Metadata Separation?

[Clem Cole via TUHS]

below...

On Mon, Sep 15, 2025 at 8:10 PM Warren Toomey via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
wrote:

> Hi all, a quick question. Was Unix the first to separate
> a file's name from the other file metadata (thus allowing
> hard links where no filename is "better" than the others)?
>
I'm not 100% I'm following you.  As far as I know, a significant innovation
in UNIC from its contemporaries, when Ken and Dennis were first considering
file systems, was the realization that humans and computers have distinct needs
for the file store.   So Ken created a first-level (lower)  file system
that mapped well to the computer itself, which is 100% flat. A numerical
index identifies files in that linear list or "map" that is common to all
files.  Furthermore, the metadata associated with each file is stored in
that single, internal list.   But that low-level file system is never
exposed to anything but the OS kernel.  A human-oriented file system is
layered on top, where everything is a stream of bytes, and files are given
human-understandable names that are associated with the actual file in the
low-level store.   The OS then defines a structure for some of those files
and gives them types (stored in the metadata).

What changed over time with UNIC to UNIX was how the upper-level file
system was exposed to the user programs.  The current
hierarchical structure emerged after trying a few others, which was the
beauty of the design.  What the kernbel uses is the "i-number," while
humans use a path.

This two-level store was unique as far as I know, so I would believe that
it was indeed first