device driver

operating system Software to control a hardware component

or peripheral device of a computer such as a magneticdisk, magnetic tape or printer.

A device driver is responsible for accessing the hardware

registers of the device and often includes an interrupthandler 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)