software bus

{{Short description|Software architecture model}}

A software bus is a software architecture model where a shared communication channel facilitates connections and communication between software modules. This makes software buses conceptually similar to the bus term used in computer hardware for interconnecting pathways.{{Cite web|title=Definition of software bus|url=https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/software-bus|access-date=2021-06-29|website=PCMAG|language=en}}

In the early microcomputer era of the 1970s, Digital Research's operating system CP/M was often described as a software bus.{{cite book|title=CP/M - the Software Bus: A Programmer's Companion|first1=A.|last1=Clarke|first2=J. M.|last2=Eaton|first3=D. Powys Lybbe|last3=David|publisher=Sigma Press|date=October 26, 1983|isbn=978-0905104188}}{{cite web|url=https://retrotechnology.com/dri/d_dri_history.html|title=CP/M and Digital Research Inc. (DRI) History|first=Herbert R.|last=Johnson|date=July 30, 2014}} Lifeboat Associates, an early distributor of CP/M and later of MS-DOS software, had a whole product line named Software Bus.{{Cite book|first=Ray|last=Duncan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fVEPAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Software+bus%22|title=The MS-DOS Encyclopedia|date=1988|publisher=Microsoft Press|page=27|quote=Further complications arose when Lifeboat Associates agreed to help promote MS-DOS but decided to call the operating system Software Bus 86. MS-DOS thus became one of a line of trademarked Software Bus products, another of which was a product called SB-80, Lifeboat's version of CP/M-80.}} D-Bus is used in many modern desktop environments to allow multiple processes to communicate with one another.