11/30/2006

My lecture ended at 4:45pm, plus or minus, today.  At 5:04pm, the following
email message hit my mailbox:

        Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:04:29 -0600
        Subject: priority

        you talked a lot today in class about processes getting interrupted by
        higher priority.  but im just curious of what happens in this situation...

        say im running my garbage process at 0 priority.  in the middle of this a
        priority 6 interrupts me.

        no big deal, i push my current position and go to the newer higher
        priority process.

        now in the middle of the new priority 6 program, a priority 3 program hits
        us.   how is this situation handled?  it seems like we would need
        something like a linked list to make sure this priority 3 process isnt
        lost.  thanks :)

        <<name withheld to protect the nurturer of lower priority interrupts>>

Excellent question!  ...and a very simple answer.

Let's assume the LC-3 computer was executing a priority 0 program when a priority 6
interrupt occurred.  And, so the LC-3 is now executing a priority 6 interrupt service 
routine.  In the middle, someone hits a key on the keyboard.  Since bits 15 and 14 in 
the KBSR are both 1, the output of the AND gate is 1.  BUT, since the priority of the 
Keyboard device is lower than the priority of the executing interrupt service routine,
the priority 6 interrupt service routine continues unmolested. 

BUT, since the key has been hit, bit [15] stays at 1 until the KBDR is accessed.
And, presumably the operating system does not change its mind about enabling
interrupts.  That means bit [14] also stays at 1.  That means the output of the
AND gate stays at 1.

At some point the interrupt service routine for the priority 6 interrupt finishes
with an RTI instruction, causing the PSR and PC of the priority 0 program to be
popped off the stack and loaded into their respective registers.  Before that program
can resume, Bingo!  The keyboard interrupt priority is higher than the priority of the
program that is running (actually, about to start running), so the keyboard interrupt
service routine interrupts, and the priority 0 program is again pushed onto the stack.

The bottom line.  Interrupts are signals that a particular priority level event wants
to interrupt the program that is running.  That signal remains asserted until it is
serviced, and that happens when the priority of the executing program is lower than
the priority of interrupt that wants to grab the processor.

One final example.  Let time travel from left to right.  Suppose interrupts arrive 
at the points in time indicated.  Suppose each program requires 8 time steps.

Interrupts arrive:     0  6          5 4  1 7    
Priority of executing 
program:               000666666660005555555777777775444444441111111100

OK?

Yale Patt