The question is simple, the answer isn't. The answer will
vary depending on every specific piece of hardware. To
my knowledge, there is no standard or standard family
of interfaces across hardware devices.
A few hardware vendors (Parallax comes to mind) who
design hardware, then embed an OS into the hardware
which communicates via some communications protocol.
In this case, you write your app then make an external
call to control the hardware. If this is implemented
across an entire product family (as Parallax has done)
then you get a nice consistent manner of doing things.
Problem here is that this approach is not particularly
flexible, and potentially incurs signficant (and I
mean significant) overhead on the hardware device.
Here's an idea... if you live near a used bookstore,
look for one of the *really* old PC hardware books.
They tend to have short chapters on using x86 assembly.
That may be useful to you, just in terms of concept.
-geoff
: >
: > Hello,
: >
: > My question is very simple, but I haven't been able to find an answer.
: <snip>
: > - literally, how software (machine code) causes bits to flip or motors
: > to actuate.
: <snip>
: > Anything you can suggest? I'm not looking for an
: > architecture reference - I've read all CPU and hardware manuals I could
: > find on a number of computer architectures.
: >
: Why don't the CPU and hardware manuals answer the
: question? If you go to a much lower level, then you
: are into electrical engineering.
: Are you trying to figure out low-level semi-conductor
: devices, bi-polar junctions, MOSFETs and associated
: interactions? How to bias a transistor junction?
: This doesn't look like a simple question.
: -Andy
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