Online Computer Terms Dictionary - X

XEROX Corporation

<company>

Home.

See also XEROX PARC, XEROX Network Services.

[Summary?]

(2001-03-03)

Xerox Data Systems Model 530

<computer> (XDS 530) A computer from the Scientific Data Systems range, announced sometime after 1968 when Xerox bought out SDS. The XDS 530 was probably under development at SDS before the buy-out but only announced afterwards.

(2004-06-17)

Xerox Data Systems Model 940

<computer> (SDS 940, XDS 940) A time-sharing system, announced in February 1966, developed by Scientific Data Systems with help from The University of California at Berkeley and Tymshare. SDS 940 was backward compatible with SDS's previous systems (except the 12-bit SDS 92). It had monitor and user modes, dynamic program relocation, automatic memory fragmentation, and system protection.

After 1968 Xerox bought out SDS and renamed the SDS machines "Xerox Data Systems" (XDS). Xerox then produced the XDS 530.

(2004-06-17)

XEROX Network Services

<networking> (XNS)

[Is this the same as/a misnomer for Xerox Network System?]

(2003-10-05)

Xerox Network System

<networking> (XNS) A proprietary network architecture developed by the Xerox Office Systems Division of Xerox corporation at Xerox PARC in the late 1970s/early 1980s to run on LAN (Ethernet) and WAN networks. The XNS protocol stack provided routing and packet delivery.

Implementations exist for 4.3BSD derived systems and the Xerox Star computers. Novell based much of the lower layers of their protocol suite IPX/SPX on XNS.

The main components are: Internet datagram protocol (IDP), Routing information protocol (RIP), Packet Exchange protocol (PEP), and Sequences packet protocol (SPP).

XNS has strong parellels to TCP/IP in that the network layer, IDP, is roughly equivalent to IP. RIP has the same functions (and obviously name) as the routing information protocol, RIP. SPP, a connectionless transport layer protocol, is similar to UDP. PEP is also in the transport layer but is connection-oriented and similar to TCP.

XNS specifically is no longer in use due to the all pervasiveness of IP.

XNS denotes not only the protocol stack, but also an architecture of standard programming interfaces, conventions, and service functions for authentication, directory, filing, e-mail, and remote procedure call. XNS is also the name of Xerox's implementation.

Many PC networking companies, such as 3Com, Banyan, Novell, and Ungermann-Bass Networks used or use a variation of XNS as their primary transport protocol. XNS was desigined to be used across a variety of communication media, processors, and office applications. UB, (now a part of Tandem Computers) adopted XNS in developing its Net/One XNS routing protocol.

[Or is it "Service(s)"? Date?]

(2003-11-10)

XEROX PARC

/zee'roks park'/ Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center.

For more than a decade, from the early 1970s into the mid-1980s, PARC yielded an astonishing volume of ground-breaking hardware and software innovations. The modern mice, windows, and icons (WIMP) style of software interface was invented there. So was the laser printer and the local-area network; Smalltalk; and PARC's series of D machines anticipated the powerful personal computers of the 1980s by a decade. Sadly, the prophets at PARC were without honour in their own company, so much so that it became a standard joke to describe PARC as a place that specialised in developing brilliant ideas for everyone else.

The stunning shortsightedness and obtusity of XEROX's top-level suits has been well described in the reference below.

["Fumbling The Future: How XEROX Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer" by Douglas K. Smith and Robert C. Alexander (William Morrow & Co., 1988, ISBN 0-688-09511-9)].

[Jargon File]

(1995-01-26)

Xerox Star

Xerox 8010