The Spooler


The Spooler was a systems software operating system package that provided spooling facilities for the IBM System/370 running DOS/VS, DOS/VSE environment, and IBM System/360 running DOS/360 or retrofitted with modified DOS/360, such as TCSC's EDOS. Other venders offering The Spooler as part of their OS were Amdahl, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Magnuson, and RCA.

The product

The Spooler was an operating system enhancement available for DOS, DOS/VS, DOS/VSE, and came packaged with some third party DOS-based operating systems.
It 'spooled' printer and card data, freeing programs from being dependent upon the speed of printers or punched card equipment.
The Spooler competed with IBM's POWER and SDI's GRASP. Like GRASP, The Spooler could reside in an independent 'Fn' partition.

Platforms

Software

The product ran under several DOS-related platforms:
Hardware platforms included:
Several other venders either offered The Spooler as part of their OS or certified compatibility:
The Spooler was sold by DataCorp of Virginia, in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The marketing manager and chief salesman was Chaz Frank. Although their target audience was North America, initial sales were in the American South.
For overseas sales, DataCorp engaged in both mail order and local vendors. The product was also embedded in third party operating system packages.

Development

The Spooler was originally developed at Carolina Steel in Greensboro, North Carolina by Don Stoneman, with the assistance of Harry Parrish and Charlie Rice. The program went into production in 1975.
Upon commercialization in 1976, development moved to DataCorp of Virginia, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, under the direction of Leigh Lundin.

Fx

The Spooler required a dedicated partition. With DOS having only three partitions and DOS/VS seven, giving up a partition to The Spooler placed a crimp in practicability.
Leigh Lundin designed Fx, a pseudo-partition that relieved the user from relinquishing a working partition. Fx appeared in the DOS/VS version of SDI's Grasp as F0.