--- title: StarLink from 1984 | daily.dev description: In May 1984, Digital Research Inc (DRI) announced StarLink, a hardware/software product designed to turn an IBM PC into a multiuser system. The hardware was an... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/starlink-from-1984-qm7xmge0g twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: StarLink from 1984 | daily.dev og:description: In May 1984, Digital Research Inc (DRI) announced StarLink, a hardware/software product designed to turn an IBM PC into a multiuser system. The hardware was an... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/starlink-from-1984-qm7xmge0g og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Qm7xMge0g.png og:image:alt: StarLink from 1984 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # StarLink from 1984 **[Two Stop Bits](https://daily.dev/sources/twostopbits)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary In May 1984, Digital Research Inc (DRI) announced StarLink, a hardware/software product designed to turn an IBM PC into a multiuser system. The hardware was an expansion board with an Intel 8088 CPU, 64KB RAM, and four RS-232 ports for connecting dumb terminals, paired with DRI's Concurrent DOS. It allowed up to five simultaneous users. Priced at $1695, it aimed to undercut dedicated multiuser systems like Altos (starting at $8000), but the required PC hardware pushed total costs close to Altos pricing. A critical limitation was incompatibility with Lotus 1-2-3 and PC-DOS software, which undermined its appeal. StarLink was commercially unsuccessful and abandoned around 1985 when DRI fell on hard times. The name was later reused by unrelated products in 1987 and 1990. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Universal Copy System Link for 97 Windows PCs](https://daily.dev/posts/universal-copy-system-link-for-97-windows-pcs-wymk9ugqf) · RUBYLAND · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Apple1 Project](https://daily.dev/posts/apple1-project-a7qswoifh) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AT&T’s Unix PC — We Hardly Knew You](https://daily.dev/posts/at-t-s-unix-pc-we-hardly-knew-you-avoutkg7k) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How CP/M-86's delay handed Microsoft the keys to the kingdom](https://daily.dev/posts/how-cp-m-86-s-delay-handed-microsoft-the-keys-to-the-kingdom-idqwhfkuk) · The Register · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#computing-history](https://daily.dev/tags/computing-history) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/starlink-from-1984-qm7xmge0g) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"StarLink from 1984","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/starlink-from-1984-qm7xmge0g","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/starlink-from-1984-qm7xmge0g"},"datePublished":"2026-07-15T18:21:23.894Z","dateModified":"2026-07-15T18:21:59.952Z","description":"In May 1984, Digital Research Inc (DRI) announced StarLink, a hardware/software product designed to turn an IBM PC into a multiuser system. 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