Skip to Content
Silence on the Wire
book

Silence on the Wire

by Michal Zalewski
April 2005
Intermediate to advanced
312 pages
9h 16m
English
No Starch Press
Content preview from Silence on the Wire

I/O Entropy: This Is Your Mouse Speaking

On almost every computer system, external devices communicate relevant asynchronous events, such information being made available from the network card or the keyboard, using a hardware interrupt mechanism. Each device has an assigned hardware interrupt (IRQ) number and reports important developments by changing the voltage on a designated hardware line inside the computer, corresponding to this particular IRQ. The change is then interpreted by a device called a programmable interrupt controller (PIC), which serves as a personal butler for the main processor (or processors).

Once instructed by the CPU, the PIC decides if, when, how, and with what priority to deliver requests from the external devices to ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Be a More Active Listener

Be a More Active Listener

Curtis Newbold
How to Develop a Great Digital Strategy

How to Develop a Great Digital Strategy

Jeanne W. Ross, Cynthia M. Beath, Ina M. Sebastian

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 1593270461Errata Page