<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:
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