Cambridge Distributed Computing System facts for kids

The Cambridge Distributed Computing System was an early type of distributed operating system developed at Cambridge University in the 1980s. It was a special computer system that allowed many computers to work together. It grew out of another project called the Cambridge Ring, which was a way to connect computers in a local area network (LAN).

What was the Cambridge Distributed System?

The Cambridge Distributed Computing System was a way for many computers to share their power. Instead of each person having their own big computer, users could connect to a central system. This system would then give them access to the computer resources they needed. It was like a giant shared computer network.

How did the system work?

Imagine a big room full of computers, called "processor banks." When someone wanted to use the system, they would connect their terminal (which is like a screen and keyboard) to these banks. The user would tell the system what kind of computer they needed, like how much memory or what type of processor.

The system would then find an available computer from the "processor bank" and assign it to that user. For as long as the user was logged in, that assigned computer became their own "personal" machine. It was like borrowing a computer from a shared pool.

These individual machines in the processor bank ran an operating system called TRIPOS. Other special computers, called servers, provided extra services. For example, there were file servers that stored all the user's documents and programs. At its busiest time, the Cambridge system had about 90 different machines working together.

The Cambridge Ring Network

The entire system relied on a special network called the Cambridge Ring. This was a very early type of local area network (LAN). Think of it like a digital highway that connected all the different computers and servers in the system. The Cambridge Ring allowed the "processor bank" computers to talk to the file servers and to the user terminals very quickly. This fast communication was key to making the distributed system work smoothly.

Why was it important?

The Cambridge Distributed Computing System was a very important step in computer history. It showed how computers could work together in a network, sharing resources instead of each computer being completely separate. This idea of "distributed computing" is now very common. For example, many modern cloud computing services use similar ideas. The Cambridge system even influenced later projects, like the Plan 9 from Bell Labs operating system, which also explored new ways for computers to work together.