RE: Grabbing wrong spool file

Actually, I believe that the origination is even older than that.  IIRC,
shortly after the Telegraph was put into operation across the country, it
was decided that a record of what was received would be nice, and could be
checked later for accuracy of translation and also for legal purposes.  A
device was invented that would transcribe the dots and dashes of Morse code
onto a paper tape and that tape was then taken up on a receiving 'spool' .
These 'spooled' messages would then be stored in case they needed to be
reviewed later.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simon Coulter [SMTP:shc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Friday, May 23, 2003 8:59 AM
> To:   Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject:      Re: Grabbing wrong spool file
> 
> 
> Hello Booth,
> 
> You wrote:
> >Simon, you'd know.  I thought SPOOLED was an acronym? 
> 
> I'm not sure anyone knows. The history of the the word spool in the
> context of 
> computer output is muddied to say the least. I believe it was originally
> used 
> to describe tape output (hence spooled to tape) and later was retro-fitted
> into 
> an acronym. Something like Simultaneous Peripheral Output On Line or some
> such 
> rubbish.
> 
> Regards,
> Simon Coulter.
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