Sharing of I/O Devices

• Two options in sharing devices

• Virtual devices: Multiplex a single hardware device, e.g., display, over different processes

  • Device is emulated by faulting on reads and writes to device
  • Example: IBM OS/370

• Abstraction: Provide device drivers and “Application Programming Interfaces” (APIs) Device Abstraction  Frame Buffer X Windows Disk UNIX File System

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