Device Driver

In computing, a device driver or software driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer. A driver typically communicates with the device through the computer bus or communications subsystem to which the hardware connects. When a calling program invokes a routine in the driver, the driver issues commands to the device. Once the device sends data back to the driver, the driver may invoke routines in the original calling program. Drivers are hardware-dependent and operating-system-specific. They usually provide the interrupt handling required for any necessary asynchronous time-dependent hardware interface.


Read more about Device Driver:  Purpose, Development, Kernel-mode Vs User-mode, Applications, Virtual Device Drivers, Open Drivers, APIs, Identifiers

Famous quotes containing the words device and/or driver:

    The man who pretends that the distribution of income in this country reflects the distribution of ability or character is an ignoramus. The man who says that it could by any possible political device be made to do so is an unpractical visionary. But the man who says that it ought to do so is something worse than an ignoramous and more disastrous than a visionary: he is, in the profoundest Scriptural sense of the word, a fool.
    George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

    God help the horse, and the driver too!
    And the people and beasts who have never a friend!
    For the driver easily might have been you,
    And the horse be me by a different end!
    And nobody knows how their days will cease!
    And the poor, when they’re old, have little of peace!
    James Kenneth Stephens (1882–1950)