The Cambridge Distributed Computing System is an early discontinued

distributed operating system A distributed operating system is system software over a collection of independent software, networked, communicating, and physically separate computational nodes. They handle jobs which are serviced by multiple CPUs. Each individual node holds a ...

, developed in the 1980s at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. It grew out of the Cambridge Ring

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, campus, or building, and has its network equipment and interconnects locally managed. LANs facilitate the distribution of da ...

, which it used to interconnect computers. The Cambridge system connected terminals to "processor banks". At login, a user would request from the bank a machine with a given architecture and amount of memory. The system then assigned to the user a machine that served, for the duration of the login session, as their " personal" computer. The machines in the processor bank ran the

TRIPOS TRIPOS (''TRIvial Portable Operating System'') is a computer operating system. Development started in 1976 at the Computer Laboratory of Cambridge University and it was headed by Dr. Martin Richards. The first version appeared in January 1978 a ...

operating system. Additional special-purpose servers provided file and other services. At its height, the Cambridge system consisted of some 90 machines.

References

{{Distributed operating systems Distributed operating systems Discontinued operating systems History of computing in the United Kingdom University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory 68k architecture