Power was an IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

 systems software operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 enhancement package that provided spooling

Spooling

In computer science, spool refers to the process of placing data in a temporary working area for another program to process. The most common use is in writing files on a magnetic tape or disk and entering them in the work queue for another process. Spooling is useful because devices access data at...

 facilities for the IBM/370 running DOS/VS, DOS/VSE environment, and IBM/360 running DOS

DOS

DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...

 or retrofitted with modified DOS

DOS

DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...

. Power is an acronym for Priority Output Writers, Execution Processors and Input Readers

The product

Power was an operating system enhancement available for DOS, DOS/VS, DOS/VSE, and came packaged with some third party DOS-based operating systems. International Business Machines released Power in 1969 following a public introduction at the IBM Wall Street Data Center.

It 'spooled

Spooling

In computer science, spool refers to the process of placing data in a temporary working area for another program to process. The most common use is in writing files on a magnetic tape or disk and entering them in the work queue for another process. Spooling is useful because devices access data at...

' (queued) printer and card data, freeing programs from being dependent upon the speed of printers or punched card equipment.

Power competed with non-IBM products, namely DataCorp's The Spooler

Spooler (software)

The Spooler was a systems software operating system package that provided spooling facilities for the IBM/370 running DOS/VS, DOS/VSE environment, and IBM/360 running DOS or retrofitted with modified DOS, such as TCSC's EDOS...

 and SDI's Grasp

Grasp (software)

GRASP was a systems software package that provided spooling facilities for the IBM/370 running DOS/VS or DOS/VSE environment, and IBM/360 running DOS or retrofitted with modified DOS.- The product :...

. Unlike the other products, Power required a dedicated partition.

Software

The product ran under several DOS-related platforms:

• DOS/360
  DOS/360
  Disk Operating System/360, also DOS/360, or simply DOS, was an operating system for IBM mainframes. It was announced by IBM on the last day of 1964, and it was first delivered in June 1966....
  
  
• DOS/VS
• DOS/VSE
• DOS/360
  DOS/360
  Disk Operating System/360, also DOS/360, or simply DOS, was an operating system for IBM mainframes. It was announced by IBM on the last day of 1964, and it was first delivered in June 1966....
  
   clones, 3rd party or modified

Hardware

The hardware platforms included:

• IBM/360 which ran Power
• IBM/370 which ran Power/VS

and clones which included:

• Amdahl
  Goddard Space Flight Center
  The Goddard Space Flight Center is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA. GSFC,...
  
  
• Fujitsu
  Fujitsu
  is a Japanese multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is the world's third-largest IT services provider measured by revenues....
  
  
• Hitachi
  Hitachi
  Hitachi is a multinational corporation specializing in high-technology.Hitachi may also refer to:*Hitachi, Ibaraki, Japan*Hitachi province, former province of Japan*Prince Hitachi and Princess Hitachi, members of the Japanese imperial family...
  
  
• Magnuson
  Magnuson Computer Systems
  Magnuson Computer Systems was a manufacturer of IBM-compatible mainframes. The Magnuson M80 range was available from the late 1970s and enjoyed limited success at a time when IBM struggled to ship machines. The company declared bankruptcy in early 1982 after IBM fixed its production problems,...
  
  
• RCA
  RCA
  RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
  
  
• Siemens
  Siemens
  Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...