Abstract: A method and apparatus is described that may allow a plurality of processes to communicate status or other information. The processes may, in some embodiments, utilize a shared memory location to determine the availability of the shared resource. Additionally, in some embodiments, a process waiting for a shared resource may wait for a condition precedent to occur before continuing execution or, in some embodiments, the process may perform other tasks while waiting for a memory location to contain a set of one or more predetermined values.