Data PBX
termnetworkingISP & telecom
A switch that connected terminals to computers the way a PBX connected telephones to lines.
In a building with more terminals than computer ports, something had to decide who got connected to what, and the data PBX (or CBX, when the vendor wanted to sound computerised) did it as a circuit switch. It was a good answer to a question that stopped being asked: local area networks let a terminal reach any host without a switch in the middle deciding, and the market closed faster than its vendors expected. It is one of the clearest cases of a product that was correct and was overtaken.
Also known as: cbx, computerized branch exchange, data switch