info-mac@uw-beaver.UUCP (10/18/84)
From: Rich Cohen <CMP.COHEN@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
The "word" SPOOL is a mnemonic for Simultaneous Peripherial Operation
On-Line. It was introduced some twenty-odd years ago to describe the
operation of pheripheral devices, such as printers, concurrently with
the running of user processes on the CPU. This great advance meant that
the CPU was no longer mostly idle when reading cards (yes, cards) or
printing. The data intended for the printer would be written
("spooled") to disk, and then the printed from the disk copy while the
user program continued execution.
The Mac does the first half (writing the data to disk before printing), but
not the second half (continuing execution of the user program while printing).
Maybe someday the Mac will be able to SPOOL.
-- Rich
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