StarLink from 1984

In May 1984, Digital Research Inc (DRI) announced a product called StarLink1. It was described as a “hardware/software combination to expand the IBM PC into a multiuser system”2 . The hardware portion was a board containing an Intel 8088 CPU, 64KB of RAM and four RS-232 interfaces for connecting dumb terminals. The software portion was DRI’s Concurrent DOS3 running on the host PC. Such “multiuser system” could serve up to five users simultaneously - one working at the PC itself, and four via terminals.DRI Micronotes, First Quarter 1984The basic idea was to use the multitasking capabilities of Concurrent DOS and replace multiple personal computers with one powerful machine and several “dumb” and hopefully inexpensive terminals.Digital Research News, October 1984DRI had supported this model for a while. Its MP/M operating system introduced in 1979, was designed specifically for multiuser 8‑bit computers, and Concurrent DOS was the latest evolution of that technology on the Intel 8086…