In even earlier days, applications didn't need to be installed at all. You just ran them from wherever they were. Of course, it made sense to store them somewhe

In even earlier days, applications didn't need to be installed at all. You just ran them from wherever they were. Of course, it made sense to store them somewhere together, and you could cause yourself problems if you put applications onto disks you then ejected. But the current system is clearly influenced by the UNIX underpinnings, and I'm not sure that the average user fully "gets it". though preferences files were a bit of a mess. I vaguely remember if early Macintosh System versions you would be prompted to insert the disk (with the correct disk name in the message) if you tried to open a file belonging to an application which was on an ejected disk.