Command execution in a heterogeneous environment
John T. Korb, Craig E. Wills · 1986
As a user's computing environment grows from a single time-shared host to a network of specialized and general-purpose machines, the capability for the user to access all of these resources in a consistent and transparent manner becomes desirable. Instead of viewing commands as binary files, we expect the user to view commands as services provided by servers in the network. The user interacts with a personal workstation that locates and executes services on his behalf.