- 3Server
The
3Com 3Server was a headless dedicated network server machine designed to run 3Com LAN server software.The companion product was the diskless
3Station network workstation, a dedicated client machine. However, 3Servers could also network with standard PC-compatibles and were commonly used in this role. Having no display other than a small one-line LCD and no keyboard or mouse interface, 3Servers were controlled via another PC on the network which allowed console access to the internal server software.The original 3Server was a non-PC compatible x86 computer based on an
Intel 80186 , running a special version ofMS-DOS and 3Com's proprietary3+Share network server software. This was a multitasking network server stack that ran on top of single-tasking DOS. Internally, it had anetwork stack , file and print server modules, disk caching, user handling and more, all running simultaneously inside the DOS memory space. Because they were not limited by the PC memory map, 3Servers could support 1megabyte of flat memory, breaking the PC's640kb barrier . This was a large amount ofRAM for the time.The original 3Server shipped in 1985 with 512k of RAM and a single 36MB hard disk. It had slots for adding six additional drives, making it one of the first
network attached storage (NAS) arrays. It supported bothEthernet (then branded EtherSeries) andAppleTalk and was quick to add Token Ring as well. The 3Server/70, introduced in July 1985, doubled the storage space to 70MB. The 3Server/500 was a80386 -based version introduced in the late 1980s, with the80486 -based 3Server/600 introduced in 1991.The last models, the 3Server386 family, ran
OS/2 1.3 as the basic operating system, using 3+Open, a variant of OS/2LAN Manager . 3Com's version was an enhancement of the basic LAN Manager package, also sold byMicrosoft andIBM and on other operating systems - for example, running onVAX/VMS it was the basis ofDEC Pathworks .In February, 1991, 3Com announced that it would hand over all rights to LAN Manager, 3+Open, its MacIntosh and NetWare integration, and related software to Microsoft. The company soon exited the network server business as well.
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