Abstract: The hard-wired non-maskable interrupt (10) of a conventional processor (7), i.e. NMI or IOCHCK, is used to bypass programed interrupts to obtain immediate, predictable access to the processor and avoid the long and uneven access times of programmed interrupts. The NMI interrupts are controlled by a programmable distributor (8). This allows the conventional computer system to operate on a real-time basis, since all the interrupts take the same time.