S-Net (aka ShareNet) was a

network operating system A network operating system (NOS) is a specialized operating system for a network device such as a router, switch or firewall. Historically operating systems with networking capabilities were described as network operating systems, because they ...

and the set of

network protocol A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics, and synchronization of ...

s it used to talk to client machines on the network. Released by

Novell Novell, Inc. () was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as NetWare. Novell technolog ...

in 1983, the S-Net operating system was an entirely proprietary operating system written for the

Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...

processor. Physically, S-Net used a star topology to allow up to 24 DOS and/or CP/M machines to connect directly to the 68B server machine. Ethernet and ARCnet were both considered but dismissed on cost grounds. S-NET used cheap dual twisted-pair phone wire and since each client computer was directly connected, the need for complex network addressing was eliminated. The 68B server ran NetWare/S-Net S-Net has also been called NetWare 68, with the 68 denoting the 68000 processor. It was superseded in 1985 by

NetWare 86 NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol. The final update release was versio ...

, which was written for the

Intel 8086 The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit computing, 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-b ...

processor. NetWare/86 which came in several editions and paved the way for the subsequent monolithic version of NetWare.

References

* * * Network operating systems

S-Net S-Net is a worldwide inter-satellite communications network consisting of four satellites and being operated by Technische Universität Berlin. Description The project has the goal to investigate and demonstrate inter-satellite communication techn ...

Proprietary operating systems {{operating-system-stub