device driver
<operating system> Software to control a hardware component or peripheral
device of a computer such as a magnetic disk, magnetic tape or printer.
A device driver is responsible for accessing the hardware registers of the
device and often includes an interrupt handler to service interrupts generated
by the device.
Device drivers often form part of the lowest level of the operating system
kernel, with which they are linked when the kernel is built. Some more recent
systems have loadable device drivers which can be installed from files after the
operating system is running.
(1994-10-27)
Nearby terms:
Device Control 2 « Device Control 3 « Device Control
4 «
device driver » device independent bitmap »
Devil Book » /dev/null
|
