Grasp (spooler)
| Industry | Computer software |
|---|---|
| Founder | Boyd Munro, Peter Hargrave |
| Headquarters | United States |
Area served | Australia, United Kingdom, United States |
Key people | Gerry Novotny (marketing) |
| Products | GRASP, GRASP/VS, GRASP/VSE |
GRASP was a systems software suite that offered spooling capabilities for the IBM/370 system operating under DOS/VS or DOS/VSE, as well as for the IBM/360 running DOS or customized versions of DOS.
The product
GRASP served as an enhancement for mainframe operating system environments, compatible with DOS, DOS/VS, DOS/VSE, and certain third-party DOS derivatives. Subsequent releases were marketed under the names GRASP/VS and GRASP/VSE.
The software managed the spooling of input and output streams, thereby decoupling applications from the speed constraints of peripherals such as printers and punched card devices.
As the pioneering spooler designed for IBM mainframes, GRASP eventually faced competition from IBM's POWER and DataCorp's Spooler products.
Software
GRASP was compatible with multiple DOS-based operating systems, including:
Hardware
The hardware platforms supported encompassed:
as well as compatible clones from manufacturers like:
F0
Since GRASP required a dedicated partition and DOS provided three partitions while DOS/VS offered seven, allocating one to GRASP reduced overall mainframe resources. To address this, the F0 partition was introduced, enabling GRASP to operate without consuming a full partition. For DOS/VS and DOS/VSE systems, Software Design, Inc. (SDI) adapted the Fx partitioning approach originally created for DOCS and Spooler.
History
Originating in Australia through the efforts of Boyd Munro during his tenure at IBM (which chose not to adopt it), GRASP was commercialized by Munro alongside Peter Hargrave via Software Design, Inc. (SDI). The company extended its market reach from Australia into the United Kingdom and United States through SDI, Inc., a California-based corporation. Marketing initiatives were directed by Gerry Novotny.