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1980-01-01
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DISK SPOOL II
by BUDGET SOFTWARE CO.
P.O.Box 12282
12162 E. Mississippi Ave.
Aurora, Colorado 80012
(303) 695-9095
Sets up a print spooling environment where printed output is spooled to
disk, rather than to memory.
FEATURES:
* Works in background to save you valuable computer time.
* Works with virtually all DOS applications.
* Pop-up menu obtainable from within almost any application, controls
starting and stopping spooling, starting and stopping the printer,
displaying the contents of the spool file, re-positioning the printer to
start at any palce within the spool file, attaching the spooler and/or
the de-spooler to different files, and much more.
* Can be set up tp spool data being sent to COM1, COM2 LPT1 and /or LPT2,
or to any combination.
* Can print the contents of the spool file to COM1, COM2 LPT1, and/or LPT2;
or you can have the program send the output to the same port from which
it was spooled.
* Can re-direct the printed output to a device driver, or to a disk file.
* Fine tune for optimal printer speed.
REQUIREMENTS:
An IBM PC, XT, AT or PS/2; or any compatible; takes up about 30K of memory.
DOS 2.0, or later.
I. INTRODUCTION
DISK SPOOL II is a program that fundamentally changes the manner in
which printing takes place on your computer. Without DISK SPOOL II,
whenever an application prints information, it sends it directly to
the printer. If you don't have a printer attached to your computer,
then you can't run the application. If your printer halts for
whatever reason, then the application halts. More importantly,
your application's execution speed is held back by the printer,
regardless of how fast your computer is, or how well designed the
application is.
With DISK SPOOL II, your applications do not have to contend directly
with the printer, since DISK SPOOL II sits in the background and
intercepts your printer data, then re-routes it to a disk file. Two
benefits are immediately derived from this: A disk file doesn't jam,
and you don't have to worry about its ribbon, so you know that your
application will run to completion. Secondly, even the fastest
printers cannot process data as quickly as a disk drive. So, your
applications finish sooner, and you are able to do more work in
less time.
But what good is the data out in a disk file? Here is where the
second main part of DISK SPOOL II comes into play. With your data
safely out on disk, and while you are busy doing other things on your
computer, DISK SPOOL II works behind the scenes to send the data from
the disk file to the printer. How is it possible for the computer to
be doing two things at the same time? The answer is that your
computer has a generous supply of excess processing cycles on its
hands, and DISK SPOOL II merely puts these cycles to work. The
computer isn't really doing two things at once, it just acts like it
is.
You may be asking yourself why the concepts described above have not
been made part of your computer's operating system by the manufacturers,
since the time savings is apparently so dramatic and so universal.
The answer is that personal computers are following the same evolutionary
path that mainframes did. Just like mainframes, the first operating
system (and the one we are still using today) was not designed to be able
to handle multitasking easily. It is a sure thing that the new operating
system being developed for the PC, just like second generation mainframes,
will have spooling environments built in. In the meantime, DISK SPOOL II
enables you to tap into this kind of operating power right now on your
present PC.
II. GETTING STARTED QUICKLY
Getting DISK SPOOL II to start working for you is as simple as keying
in the program name SP2, and pressing the Enter key. DISK SPOOL II
will begin spooling printed data to a file called SPO.SPL in the root
directory of drive c:. If you want your spool file to reside on a
different drive, just key in the drive letter following the SP2.
Example: SP2 d.
There's only one thing some people will have to do differently. If
you are in the habit of using DOS' command PRINT to print a file, use
the command SP2PRT instead. This command is found on your diskette.
To use it, merely key in SP2PRT followed by the name of the file you
wish to print. Also, some users utilize the COPY command (e.g. COPY
XXXXX LPT1) or the TYPE command (TYPE XXXXX > LPT1) in order to print
files. Again, use the SP2PRT command instead. You may want to try
DISK SPOOL out right now to see how well it works by printing this
document. Just load DISK SPOOL II by keying in SP2, and then key in:
SP2PRT sp2.doc.
Finally, a quick word about printer speed. If you notice that your
printer speed is slower than usual, or that your computer appears to
be less responsive, then read the section of this document entitled
"Fine Tuning DISK SPOOL II".
That's all there is to it, except that there's a lot more. However,
every effort has been made to make DISK SPOOL II easy to learn and to
use; so you are likely to find that you can pick most of it up by
simply getting started. Then use the rest of this manual as a
reference guide.
III. THE MENU
DISK SPOOL II is a memory resident program whose facilities are
controlled by means of a pop-up menu. This means that you can be in
the middle of any application and access DISK SPOOL II's menu by
simply pressing the two "hot keys". DISK SPOOL II comes
pre-configured with the Alt and Left Uppershift keys as the "hot
keys". You can, however, configure the "hot-keys" to be anything you
wish. The menu style is the popular Lotus-style "single tier" menu.
The top row of the menu displays several keywords, each of which
represents a menu selection. And at the onset, the leftmost keyword
is shown in reverse image. The second line of the menu gives a
description of the menu item that is currently in reverse image. There
are two ways to make a menu selection. You either position the reverse
image "bar" using the left and right arrow keys so that the keyword you
wish to select is highlighted, and then press the Enter key; or, you
simply tap the first letter of the keyword you wish to take. Often, one
menu selection leads to another menu tier. If you don't want to take any
selection from a given tier, tap the Esc key to go back a tier. As
you become familiar with DISK SPOOL II, you will quickly learn the
letter sequences needed to perform a given task. Learning these
sequences is made all the more easy since the letter you key in is
always the first letter of the function you wish to perform. For
example the keywords to enable the Despooler at the beginning of the
file are: Despooler, then Enable, then Beginning. You will quickly
learn to key in DEB to perform this function.
IV. THE SPOOLER AND DESPOOLER
Disk Spool II has two main components: the Spooler, whose job it is
to intercept printer data and re-direct it to a disk file; and the
Despooler, whose job it is to work in the background sending the
contents of the disk file to the printer. By means of the pop-up
menu, you have the ability to enable and/or disable both components.
When the Spooler is enabled, it does its job of spooling printer data
out to disk.