Hardware and Software Interrupts

What is Hardware and Software Interrupts?

Hardware and software interrupts are the two sources an interrupt can come from: a hardware interrupt is raised by a device such as a keyboard, printer or disk drive, while a software interrupt is raised by a running program, for example on a division by zero or two processes trying to access the same memory location.

This definition is part of the Software chapter in Cambridge O Level Computer Science.

Concepts related to Hardware and Software Interrupts

• Interrupt Service Routine
• Fetch-Decode-Execute Cycle
• Operating System
• buffer