Abstract: A distributed memory I/O interface 10 is provided which allows a plurality of standard peripheral bus I/O controllers 101 to perform multiple transfer operations simultaneously and independently within a networked, distributed memory system 102. The interface 10 includes a peripheral interface 11 to the I/O controllers 101, a memory interface 12 to the distributed memory system 102, a system interface 13 to the processors of the distributed memory system 102, a caching circular buffer RAM 12, and an internal bus 105. The operations of the interface 10 are controlled by logical channels. Each logical channel comprises a channel context, which includes a set of parameters stored in buffer RAM 12 that specify among other things logical address space, a physical memory map, a RAM buffer segment, and a set of allowed transactions for use during channel operations.