Technical Office Protocol

Technical Office Protocol (TOP), also called Technical and Office Protocol, is a set of protocols intended for networks that perform distributed information processing in business offices. TOP uses the Ethernet access method and resembles the Manufacturing Application Protocol (MAP), which governs the operation of a bus network as if it were a Token Ring.

TOP was developed by Boeing Computer Services and based on the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, a standard that defines the ways in which messages should be transmitted between end points in a network. In the OSI model, also known as the OSI reference model (OSI-RM), the process of communication between any two points is broken down into a hierarchical set of levels called layers that perform defined functions and work together in a rigorously specified manner.

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More resources from around the web: - Doc Searls discusses "The Protocol Problem." - Cisco provides an illustrated description of the OSI model.

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