However, the term “terminal server” increasingly began to refer to software solutions that were developed for this purpose – such as the Telnet 3270 program and network protocol for accessing IBM mainframes. Here, server and mainframe programs remained indispensable and terminal servers were the perfect solution for granting clients access to them. However, central administrative bodies retained their importance when it came to the commercial sector.

Instead of relying on server assistance, they now had standalone systems on which operating systems, among other things, could be installed. This not only paved the way for more flexible use of computer resources, but also meant that a terminal server now referred to the host computers, which remained the central control unit for the time being, despite their own (albeit minimal) hardware terminals.Īs personal computers became more and more common, the need for a central terminal server to distribute computing power became increasingly obsolete. The groundbreaking aspect of the terminal server was its ability to send output from the host to remote terminals. The user interface had its own network protocol and was also known as “x11”. It appeared for the first time in 1984 when the first graphic user interface was developed for the Windows operating system being run on the dominant Unix mainframe computer. What is a terminal server? The term “terminal server” already has a history, and the meaning has changed several times over the years.

Terminal server license cost