Abstract: A method and apparatus for an innovative hardware independent interface to the external world. The interrupt services are part of an overall I/O model providing an object base I/O system that supports dynamic configuration of the system. The design of these interrupt exploit the advantages of Object Oriented Design (OOD) in an otherwise disorderly world of I/O. Object processing is designed into the architecture at the lowest level routines in the preferred embodiment of the invention. This includes an object oriented design all the way down to interrupt processing abstractions. These interrupt abstractions provide an architecturally sound framework for the dynamic installation, configuration, and timely execution of interrupt handlers.

Abstract: A method and system for providing services in an object oriented system. The method and system are in the form of an interface reference framework of objects which create services in response to requests. Clients request services which are created in response to the requests. In response to the request the framework first develops a description of the service. The description is in the form of a stack of descriptions of services. From the stack descriptions the actual services are created by maker objects.

Abstract: An object-oriented hardware configuration system for enabling centralized user configuration of hardware in a computer system includes a plurality of object-oriented hardware interface objects each representing a hardware device physical connector, and a plurality of object-oriented hardware module objects. Each of the hardware module objects represents a hardware device that is user-configurable. Each of the hardware module objects includes one or more hardware interface objects associated with the hardware device such that connectors of the hardware device are defined. An object-oriented hardware configuration object is provided, wherein the hardware configuration object includes a plurality of hardware module objects that represent hardware devices connected to a particular computer system. The hardware configuration object defines a hardware configuration of the particular computer system.