| | | | Network Basic Input/Output System. IBM introduced NetBIOS in 1983 as an improvement to BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), adding network support to allow computers to communicate over a small LAN (Local Area Network) of up to 80 machines, then later in 1985 in their Token Ring networks in the form of a NetBIOS emulator. It is now an industry standard. The first versions of NetBIOS didn't inherently allow for data packets to contain a network address and so they were not easily routed. To communicate over a WAN (Wide Area Network) another transport system needed to be used, such as TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). Later networks use a separate system for transport (the NetBEUI - "NetBIOS Extended User Interface" as incorporated into later version of MS Windows) and interfacing with hardware (the API - "Application Programming Interface"), so that each computer will have an IP address and a NetBIOS name. NetBIOS is still used however, both to support legacy applications as well as to resolve NetBIOS names - as one of the first major standards set in networking, NetBIOS determined the format for naming computers, using a series of 15 characters. There are two modes of communication in NetBIOS, datagram and session. The datagram mode is connectionless - relatively smaller messages are sent without guarantee of delivery and independently and detection of errors and confirmation of delivery is down to the application. In session mode two machines establish a connection for the purposes of communication and relatively larger messages can be handled. In this mode the error detection and delivery confirmation is performed by NetBIOS. | | | |
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