I'm sorry but you are really completely missing the point. You are conflating how Smalltalk is implemented under the hood (using files) with how Smalltalk is us

I'm sorry but you are really completely missing the point. You are conflating how Smalltalk is implemented under the hood (using files) with how Smalltalk is used for programming (using the image). Under the hood, Smalltalk has to adapt to the host platform, whether that be Windows, macOS, or Linux. In the original Smalltalk implementation over four decades ago, Smalltalk was the host platform (or operating system), so there were no files for source code.