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Mirror Vax (talk | contribs) m moved Programmer's Key to Programmer's key |
TimBentley (talk | contribs) m Corrected link to disambiguation page. (you can help!) |
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The '''Programmer's Key''', or ''interrupt button'', is a button or switch on a [[computer]] which causes an [[asynchronous]] [[interrupt]] request (IRQ) to be sent to the [[central processing unit|processor]]. If a [[debugger]] is installed on the machine, it is activated when the interrupt request is processed, allowing the user to view and usually modify the computer's internal memory. This is quite useful in [[debugging]] software, which is why it gets its name.
The "key" need not always be a button or a switch. On some computers, it is a pinhole into which a straightened paperclip must be inserted (to prevent accidental activation).
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