What is the role of a workstation computer?

In the days of main frame computers, work stations were keyboards and printers, or monitors, which were linked to the Central Processing Unit, which performed all the functions. In other Words, when a person typed, each character was sent to the CPU. When smaller computers became available, workstations were given limited storage capacity, so that characters are stored in a memory inside the workstation until the CPU polls the work station to dump its data into a buffer, or holding area, in the CPU. These work stations resembled stand-alone computers, but did not have the ability to run programs. Work stations have disappeared, for the most part, as stand-alone computers have become much less expensive.

Some applications still have the term 'work station', where there is a central computer, called a server, which handles storing and retrieving data, for the stand-alone computers which are linked to it, thus reducing the amount of data stored on each computer. However, desk top computers have become so powerful that it is rare to have a central computer do the processing, with only input and output occurring at the work station.