The Liaison network multimedia workstation

A description is given of a workstation architecture, Liaison, that solves the high bandwidth problem for real-time video and allows the exploration of these communications issues. By distributing the workstation's intelligence over a high-performance network, both the computation and communication load are shed to other processors on the network. The Liaison display performs only the low-level functions of acquiring and displaying images, whereas the remainder of the workstation's functionality is performed by a pool of distributed processors. Initial experiences with this architecture using a prototype monochrome workstation have provided insight into the issues surrounding the control and processing of communications-intensive applications.<>