Incorporating Multimedia in Distributed Open Systems

Operating systems have had a long history of development, with early batch systems giving way to large time sharing systems and eventually being replaced by more lightweight kernels such as UNIX. In more recent times, the field has reacted to falling hardware costs and the evolution of networking technology by developing distributed operating systems (e.g.[Tanenbaum,86], [Cheriton,84]) running over local area networks. The current state of the art is that subjects such as communications networks, protocols, network management and distributed operating systems are relatively well understood. Products such as Ethernet, X-25 and Mach [Rashid,86] are available in the market place and standards to provide open communications are generally agreed.