Workstations

Workstations are attached to the server through the network interface card and the cabling. The dumb terminals used on mainframes and minicomputer systems are not supported on networks because they are not capable of processing on their own. Workstations are normally intelligent systems, such as the IBM PC. The concept of distributed processing relies on the fact that personal computers attached to the networks perform their own processing after loading programs and data from the server. Hence, a workstation is called an Active Device on the network. After processing, files are stored back on the server where they can be used by other workstations.
The workstation can also be a diskless PC, wherein loading of operating system takes place from the file server. In short, a PC + a LAN card = a Workstation.