advanced programmable interrupt controller amigaos application programming interface asynchronous communication atomic clock bios interrupt call beos cpu modes central processing unit comparison of operating systems computer multitasking computer network computing context switch device driver ethernet exception handling exokernel general protection fault graphical user interface hardware abstraction layer history of operating systems hybrid kernel industry standard architecture instruction set inter-processor interrupt interrupt handler interrupt latency interrupt request interrupt storm linux loadable kernel module ms-dos mac os x memory barrier memory protection memory segmentation message signaled interrupts microkernel microsoft windows monolithic kernel non-maskable interrupt opensolaris open collector operating system operating system development pci express paging parallel port preboot execution environment programmable interrupt controller protected mode reactos segmentation fault system call timeline of operating systems typeahead user space virtual file system virtual tape library watchdog timer