Early Versions
TOPS was implemented in an era where each computer system featured its own networking protocol and were generally unable to talk to each other. At the time Apple was in the midst of the Macintosh Office effort, and was working with two external companies to develop the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP), built on top of AppleTalk. Macintosh Office imploded, and one of the two companies, Centram, decided to implement a similar system on their own. This became the first version of TOPS.
When TOPS was originally released there was no peer-to-peer file sharing solution on the Mac. Apple's own solution, AppleShare, was not released until later, and unlike TOPS it required a dedicated server machine to run on, at least a Mac Plus. For smaller offices TOPS was an attractive low-cost solution, and saw relatively widespread use. Even after the introduction of AppleShare, TOPS managed to hold on to an estimated 600,000 client installs.
TOPS was initially a protocol using a custom set of remote procedure calls and able to talk only between TOPS clients. PCs generally lacked networking of any sort, and Centram addressed this problem by introducing a line of LocalTalk cards for the PC, along with a TOPS client. Files could be exchanged between the two computers, with filename conversion as required.
Read more about this topic: TOPS (file Server)
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