8-2
x86 MICROPROCESSORS
obviously waiting and doing nothing else. This is just a waste of processor time. A better
way of organizing the setup would be to let the processor do some task and ‘interrupt’ it
only when a key is pressed. When a ‘key press’ interrupt is received, the processor per-
forms the ‘interrupt service routine’ (ISR), which is the process of identifying the key
that was pressed. This, in essence, is the philosophy of interrupts and it helps utilize the
processor with maximum efficiency.
8.1 | Interrupts of 8086
Now that we have accepted that interrupts are a part of the normal working of a proces-
sor, let us see the interrupt processing mechanism of 8086. 8086 has hardware interrupts,
software interrupts and error generated ...