Interrupt
In systems programming, an interrupt is a signal to the processor or an instruction in software usually indicating an event that needs immediate attention. An interrupt signals the processor of a high-priority condition requiring the interruption of the current code the processor is executing, the current thread. The processor responds by suspending its current activities, saving its state, and executing a small program called an interrupt handler (interrupt service routine, ISR) to deal with the event. This interruption is temporary, and after the interrupt handler finishes, the processor resumes execution of the previous thread. There are two types of interrupt:
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Famous quotes containing the word interrupt:
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)
“Never interrupt a murderer, madame.”
—Walter Reisch (1903–1963)