Editing Spooling (section)

== History ==
Peripheral devices have always been much slower than core processing units.  This was an especially severe problem for early [[Mainframe computer|mainframes]].  For example, a job which read punched cards or generated printed output directly was forced to run at the speed of the slow mechanical devices.  The first spooling programs, such as IBM's "SPOOL System" (7070-IO-076) copied data from punched cards to magnetic tape, and from tape back to punched cards and printers.  [[Hard disk drive|Hard disks]], which offered faster I/O speeds and support for [[random access]], started to replace the use of magnetic tape for spooling in the middle 1960s, and by the 1970s had largely replaced it altogether.

Because the [[unit record equipment]] on IBM mainframes of the early 1960s was slow, it was common for larger systems to use a small offline computer such as an [[IBM 1401]] instead of spooling.

The term "spool" may originate with the Simultaneous Peripheral Operations On-Line<ref>{{cite manual
 |     author =
 |  publisher = IBM
 |     series = 7070 Data Processing System Bulletins
 |      title = IBM 7070 SPOOL System
 |         id = J28-6047-1
 |    edition = Second
 |       date =
 |    chapter =
 |       page =
 |      quote =
 |        url = 
 |     format =
 |       mode = cs2
}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Systems Programming |last=Donovan |first=John J. |author-link=John J. Donovan |isbn=0-07-085175-1 |date=1972 |page=405 }}</ref> (SPOOL) software;<ref>{{cite book
 |      title = Operating System Concepts
 |    author1 = James L. Peterson
 |    author2 = Abraham Silberschatz
 |    section = 1.4.3 Spooling
 |       page = 18
 |       isbn = 0-201-06097-3
 |       date = July 1984
 |  publisher = [[Addison-Wesley]]
 }}
</ref> this derivation is uncertain however, as it may be a [[backronym]].<ref name="Tanenbaum, Andrew S 2008">Tanenbaum, Andrew S. ''Modern Operating Systems''. 3rd Ed. Pearson Education, Inc., 2008. {{ISBN|978-0-13-600663-3}}</ref>{{check|reason=quote relevant text.|date=October 2022}}  Another explanation is that it refers to "spools" or [[reel]]s of magnetic tape, although “spool” is an uncommon usage.