from the queue or check on its progress, respectively. While the system was considered to be quite complex to set up and administer, most uses were expected to only use these three commands.

With its distribution in the influential AT&T Unix System V, the interface if not the implementation became the standard for users' control over printers. The command was included as a requirement in the POSIX.2 standard, and a command by that name appeared in the subsequent lpr, LPRng and