quickring was a gigabit-rate interconnect that combined the functions of a computer bus and a network. it was designed at apple computer as a multimedia system to run "on top" of existing local bus systems inside a computer, but was later taken over by national semiconductor and repositioned as an interconnect for parallel computing. it appears to have seen little use in either role, and is no longer being actively worked on. however it appears to have been an inspiration for other more recent technologies, such as hypertransport.