| 1. | Further, disabling interrupts is often deemed too expensive to be practical.
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| 2. | However, disabling interrupts has numerous downsides.
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| 3. | Prior to kernel version 2.6, Linux disabled interrupt to implement short critical sections.
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| 4. | RTOSs implementing the unified architecture solve the problem by simply disabling interrupts while the internal catalogue is updated.
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| 5. | In multiprocessor systems, it is usually impossible to disable interrupts on all processors at the same time.
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| 6. | If an ISR is involved, the only way to ensure exclusive access to common variables is to disable interrupts.
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| 7. | For example, the Z80 / Z180 family disables interrupts once an interrupt is serviced by an interrupt service routine.
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| 8. | If the I / O registers are swapped out, it is also necessary to disable interrupts via an STI instruction.
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| 9. | When there are multiple instructions which must be completed without interruption, a CPU instruction which temporarily disables interrupts is used.
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| 10. | Setting or clearing this mask may be faster than accessing an interrupt mask register ( IMR ) in a PIC or disabling interrupts in the device itself.
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