Purpose and Steps of an Interrupt
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1. What is the purpose of an interrupt?
2. What steps are carried out by the hardware when an interrupt occurs?
3. What steps are carried out by the interrupt handler when an interrupt occurs?
4. Why is it necessary to disable interrupts at certain points in time?
5. What might happen if there was no way to disable interrupts?
6. If interrupts are disabled, when can they be enabled?
7. What is the difference between a synchronous interrupt and an asynchronous interrupt?
8. Why do computer systems have different execution modes (user mode and supervisor or kernel mode)?
9. What is a privileged instruction and why are they necessary? When can a privileged instruction be executed? Give an example of such an instruction.
10. What is memory protection and why is it necessary?
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The solution answers questions about the purpose and steps of an interrupt.
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1. What is the purpose of an interrupt?
Ans:
An interrupt is a signal raised from hardware or software to indicate the occurence of an event. It indicates the need of a change in the execution. Interrupt is a mechanism required for implementing the multitasking concept. It will use the concept of context switching, for servicing the request.
2. What steps are carried out by the hardware when an interrupt occurs?
Ans:
Interrupt handling or servicing of an interrupts depends upon the design of the operating system. A routine which is called for servicing the interrupt is known as Interrupt Service Routine (ISR) and the request for the ISR through an interrupt is known as Interrupt Request (IRQ).
3. What steps are carried out by the interrupt handler when an interrupt occurs?
Ans:
i) The interrupt handler initially examines the device to determine whether this device issued the interrupt
ii) Informing a device regarding servicing is a device-specific operation that is required for the majority of devices
iii) Devices can interrupt for different reasons, such as transfer done or transfer error.
iv) Do some ...
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