Real Mode
When generating a software interrupt, the processor calls one of the 256 functions pointed to by the interrupt address table, which is located in the first 1024 bytes of memory while in real mode (See Interrupt vector). It is therefore entirely possible to use a far-call instruction to start the interrupt-function manually after pushing the flag register.
One of the most useful DOS software interrupts was interrupt 0x21. By calling it with different parameters in the registers (mostly ah and al) you could access various IO operations, string output and more.
Most Unix systems and derivatives do not use software interrupts, with the exception of interrupt 0x80, used to make system calls. This is accomplished by entering a 32-bit value corresponding to a kernel function into the EAX register of the processor and then executing INT 0x80.
Read more about this topic: INT (x86 Instruction)
Famous quotes containing the words real and/or mode:
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“I have no scheme about it,—no designs on men at all; and, if I had, my mode would be to tempt them with the fruit, and not with the manure. To what end do I lead a simple life at all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives?—and so all our lives be simplified merely, like an algebraic formula? Or not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared, to live more worthily and profitably?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)