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What is spooling? Printer queue example.

FresherFundamentalsOperating Systems
Model answer

Spooling

Spool (Simultaneous Peripheral Operations On-Line) queues jobs for slow devices—classic printer queue: apps write to spool file; printer driver drains at hardware speed.

  • Decouples fast CPU from slow mechanical printer.
  • OS spooler schedules jobs FIFO (or priority).
  • User can keep working while print finishes in background.
Modern parallel: log aggregation buffers, async email outbox.