The new mexico state university ring‐star system: A distributed unix environment
Arthur I. Karshmer, Dirk J. Depree, James Phelan · Software Practice and Experience · 1983
Abstract A distributed version of the UNIX operations system is currently under development through a joint effort of New Mexico State University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A microprocessor version of the UNIX kernel has been developed which will run on any PDP‐11 or LSI‐11 based processing element and allows processes to run in a UNIX ‘look‐alike’ environment. Each process is fully transportable among all processors in the system. Although the preliminary version of the system was built in a star configuration, the system is currently being upgraded by the addition of a communication ring with 8‐bit microprocessors as ring interface units. The current paper describes the software structure, the hardware structure and the communication protocol of the system.