Founded in 1974, NSC produced hardware products that connected IBM and Control Data Corporation (CDC) mainframe computers to peripherals at remote locations.

NSC also developed and commercialized the HYPERchannel networking system and protocol standards, adopted by Cray Research, Tektronix and others.

In addition, the rapid evolution of routing protocols and software was not suited to their products which could neither be upgraded by the customer, nor booted from a server elsewhere on the network.

The company attempted to respond to market demands in 1991 by merging with Vitalink Communications Corporation, primarily a bridge manufacturer.

Vitalink was well entrenched in the LAN/Network industry, however, bridges and issues with large Spanning-Tree domains were allowing the router manufacturers to gain position.