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operating systems design

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I'm wondering if anyone has a background in operating system design.
I'm taking a class is OS's and the text is

OPERATING
SYSTEM
CONCEPTS
ABRAHAM SILBERSCHATZ
9th edition, and it says something that is puzzling me



"Interrupts are an important part of a computer architecture. Each
computer design has its own interrupt mechanism, but several functions
are common. The interrupt must transfer control to the appropriate
interrupt service routine. The straightforward method for handling this
transfer would be to invoke a generic routine to examine the interrupt
information. The routine, in turn, would call the interrupt-specific
handler. However, interrupts must be handled quickly"

" Since only a predefined number of interrupts is possible, a table of
pointers to interrupt routines can be used instead*** to provide the
necessary speed. The interrupt routine is called indirectly through the
table, with no intermediate routine needed. Generally, the table of
pointers is stored in low memory (the first hundred or so locations).
These locations hold the addresses of the interrupt service routines for
the various devices. This array, or interrupt vector, of addresses is
then indexed by a unique device number, given with the interrupt
request, to provide the address of the interrupt service routine for
the interrupting device. Operating systems as different as Windows and
UNIX dispatch interrupts in this manner."


***  Instead of what?  Just because you have a table of pointers to
routines doesn't change the need for a routine, a generic routine
perhaps, from accessing that table.


Ruben

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operating systems design ruben safir <ruben@mrbrklyn.com> - 2015-01-29 17:11 -0500
  Re: operating systems design Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2015-01-29 22:29 +0000
    Re: operating systems design ruben safir <ruben@mrbrklyn.com> - 2015-01-30 08:19 -0500
      Re: operating systems design "David W. Hodgins" <dwhodgins@nomail.afraid.org> - 2015-01-30 09:01 -0500
      Re: operating systems design Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-01-30 08:07 -0600
        Re: operating systems design Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> - 2015-01-30 15:43 +0100
          Re: operating systems design Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-01-30 09:09 -0600
      Re: operating systems design Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2015-01-30 15:21 +0000
        Re: operating systems design Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-01-30 11:27 -0600
          Re: operating systems design Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2015-01-30 19:10 +0000
            Re: operating systems design Jean-David Beyer <jeandavid8@verizon.net> - 2015-02-02 08:29 -0500
              Re: operating systems design Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2015-02-02 15:09 +0000
      Re: operating systems design The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-02-03 00:11 +0000
  Re: operating systems design Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> - 2015-01-30 09:28 +0100
  Re: operating systems design The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-02-03 00:08 +0000
    Re: operating systems design Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-02-03 20:52 +0000
      Re: operating systems design The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-02-03 21:06 +0000
      Re: operating systems design Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2015-02-03 21:19 +0000

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