avar parent
The reader is left to wonder what the software librarian at the Computer History Museum could have possibly found recently that warrants a placement ahead of Unix v4 in their project queue. A copy of Atlantian Unix from the ancient Library of Alexandria?
Perhaps a prior promise to someone else?
Or you know... just the definition of a FIFO Queue. I mean, using a FILO Stack to organize your work would certainly be a choice...
Definitionally if they're "pushing it near the top" they're not only using FIFO, there's a priority ordering involved...
My guess is there's stuff in progress and maybe they need to arrange access to or setup the readers for a tape that old and of potentially unknown format.
Yes it's probably better to finish in progress stuff first.