What was developed in the 1970s as a way to provide sufficient network access so diskless workstations could access startup information across the network, instead of reading it from a local disk drive?

The Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP)

Explanation:

Based on the information provided within the question it can be said that the technology that is being described in this scenario is known as The Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP). This refers to a computer networking protocol which automatically assigns an IP address to a network device from a configuration server, which in the 70's would allow diskless workstations to access startup information across the network.

answer; defense;