In the late 1970s, the IBM 3730, a word-processing variant of the IBM 3790

IBM 3790

IBM 3790 was a computer system announced in 1975, one of the first distributed computing platforms. It preceded the IBM 8100, announced in 1979....

 was announced. It used 3790 hardware but its software made it a dedicated shared-logic word-processing system which could support a dozen or more word-processing IBM 3732

IBM 3732

The IBM 3732 is a word-processing terminal derived from the IBM 3270 family of terminals from IBM. Defunct IBM 3777 terminals which had been returned by customers were re-engineered and equipped with a specialized word-processing keyboard, and shipped back to other customers as part of the IBM...

 terminals.

It could be connected using Systems Network Architecture

Systems Network Architecture

Systems Network Architecture is IBM's proprietary networking architecture created in 1974. It is a complete protocol stack for interconnecting computers and their resources. SNA describes the protocol and is, in itself, not actually a program...

 to a central mainframe running IBM DISOSS

DISOSS

DISOSS DISOSS DISOSS (acronym for (DIStributed Office Support System) is a centralized document distribution and filing application for IBM's mainframe computers running the MVS operating system...

 which was a centralized document exchange software running on CICS

CICS

Customer Information Control System is a transaction server that runs primarily on IBM mainframe systems under z/OS and z/VSE.CICS is a transaction manager designed for rapid, high-volume online processing. This processing is mostly interactive , but background transactions are possible...

.