S-Net (aka ShareNet) was a

network operating system A network operating system (NOS) is a specialized operating system for a network device such as a router, switch or firewall. Historically operating systems with networking capabilities were described as network operating systems, because they al ...

and the set of

network protocol A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synchroniza ...

s it used to talk to client machines on the network. Released by

Novell Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Under the lead ...

in 1983, the S-Net operating system was an entirely proprietary operating system written for the

Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...

processor. It used a

star network topology A star network is an implementation of a spoke–hub distribution paradigm in computer networks. In a star network, every host is connected to a central hub. In its simplest form, one central hub acts as a conduit to transmit messages. The ...

. S-Net has also been called NetWare 68, with the 68 denoting the 68000 processor. It was superseded by

NetWare 86 NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol. The original NetWare product in 19 ...

, which was written for the

Intel 8086 The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-bit data bus (allowi ...

processor, in 1985.

References

* * * Network operating systems S-Net Proprietary operating systems {{operating-system-stub