[Verse 1] When hardware screams across the wire CPU drops what it was doing Priority vectors cut through code Interrupt controller's brewing Save the registers, push the stack Context switching, no turning back Service routine springs to life Handling chaos, cutting strife [Chorus] IRQ, Interrupt ReQuest Save, serve, restore the rest Vector table points the way Handle async every day IRQ, don't delay Mask the noise, let signals play Bottom half can wait in line Top half keeps us running fine [Verse 2] Register handlers at boot time Function pointers locked and loaded Device drivers claim their slots Interrupt numbers now decoded Keyboard taps and network frames Timer ticks and disk I/O games Each event needs its own lane Shared interrupts share the pain [Chorus] IRQ, Interrupt ReQuest Save, serve, restore the rest Vector table points the way Handle async every day IRQ, don't delay Mask the noise, let signals play Bottom half can wait in line Top half keeps us running fine [Bridge] Critical sections need protection Disable interrupts with care Atomic operations guard the data Race conditions lurking everywhere Nested interrupts stack up high Priority inversion makes you cry Real-time deadlines can't be missed Every microsecond's on the list [Verse 3] Spurious interrupts deceive you Edge triggered or level sensing Debounce circuits clean the signal Hardware timing's so suspenseful Acknowledge sources, clear the flags Memory barriers prevent the lags Return from interrupt restores the scene Like nothing happened, smooth and clean [Chorus] IRQ, Interrupt ReQuest Save, serve, restore the rest Vector table points the way Handle async every day IRQ, don't delay Mask the noise, let signals play Bottom half can wait in line Top half keeps us running fine [Outro] From kernel space to user mode Interrupts bridge the great divide Asynchronous events collide With synchronous execution's stride
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