PRINT command ofRT-11SJ displayed on aVT100.Incomputing, theprintcommandprovides single-user printspooling capability in a number ofoperating systems. It is roughly similar to that provided by theUNIX System Vlp andBSD lpr print spooler systems.
The command is available in theDECRT-11,[1]OS/8,[2]RSX-11,[3]TOPS-10,[4] andTOPS-20[5] operating systems and also inDRFlexOS,[6]DR DOS,TSLPC-MOS,[7]Paragon TechnologyPTS-DOS,[8]SISNE plus,[9]IBMOS/2,[10]eComStation,ArcaOS,Microsoft Windows,FreeDOS,[11]StratusOpenVOS,[12]AROS,[13]HPMPE/iX,[14] andOpenVMS.[15]
TheFreeDOS version was developed by James Tabor and is licensed under theGPL.[16]
The command was introduced inMS-DOS/IBM PC DOS 2.0.[17][18]DR DOS 6.0 includes an implementation of thePRINT command.[19]
In early versions ofDOS, printing was accomplished using thecopy command: the file to be printed was "copied" to the file representing theprint device.[20] Control returned to the user when the print job completed.[21] Beginning with DOS 2.0,[22] theprint command was included to allow basic print spooling: the ability to continue to use the computer while printing occurred in the background, and the ability to create a queue of jobs to be printed.[23]
Theprint command allowed specifying one of many possible local printer interfaces,[23] and could make use of networked printers using thenet command.[24] A maximum number of files and a maximum buffer size could be specified, and further command-line options allowed adding and removing files from the queue.[23] Margins, page lengths and number of copies could also be set,[25] as well as a parameter to adjust between favoring printing speed versus computer responsiveness.[23]
Users of the initial release of theprint command commented on the slow print speed and high resource usage, as well as the lack of support for the newly introducedsubdirectories.[22] The command was among the firstRAM-resident programs and was the first to achieve widespread use, with many users disassembling the binary in order to determine how RAM-resident programs should be written.[21]
