AbstractIn March 1980, a VAX 11/780VAX is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corp.was installed at the Computing Laboratory of the University of Kent. The VAX runs UNIX as a user service. This paper discusses what has been learnt from the integration of an existing operating system (UNIX) into a local area network based on the Cambridge ring. The approach which has been evolved attempts to make the network connections invisible to the operating system so that the utilities running on the system can access the network as if they were talking to standard peripherals. The paper gives an overview of the ring and the protocols in use at Kent; and points to alternative approaches to the implementation which could be used in a different environment.
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