Editing Application checkpointing (section)

=== Save State ===
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One of the original and now most common means of application checkpointing was a "save state" feature in interactive applications, in which the user of the application could save the state of all variables and other data and either continue working or exit the application and restart the application and restore the saved state at a later time. This was implemented through a "save" command or menu option in the application. In many cases, it became standard practice to ask the user, if they had unsaved work when exiting an application, if they wanted to save their work before doing so.
 
This functionality became extremely important for usability in applications in which a particular task could not be completed in one sitting (such as playing a video game expected to take dozens of hours) or in which the work was being done over a long period of time (such as data entry into a document such as rows in a spreadsheet).

The problem with save state is it requires the operator of a program to request the save. For non-interactive programs, including automated or batch processed workloads, the ability to checkpoint such applications also had to be automated.