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IRQ
'''IRQ'''

This stands for Interrupt ReQuest and is a signal that the CPU receives from an  ?external hardware device, I don't mean only the hardware devices outside your case, but all hardware devices except your CPU itself. IRQs are also known as hardware-generated interrupts because that's what they are in essence. In the Intel x86 family of processors, there are  ?PICs, programmable interrupt controllers, that typically allow the use of 16 of these IRQs. What this allows the CPU to do is to do some processing allowing an external device to interrupt and request service rather than having the CPU poll, which is an extremely inefficient method of handling things.

See also Interrupt, IEvents, IEventsIRQ

last edited (March 15, 2003) by KDivad Leahcim, Number of views: 1881, Current Rev: 2 (Diff)

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