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What a Bus Is and Why Devices Sit on One

A bus is the shared wiring and agreed set of rules by which a processor and devices exchange addresses and data. Rather than giving every chip its own private connection, the machine gives them a common road with a protocol for taking turns. Because devices are grouped by which bus they live on, the operating system can reuse one set of code for finding, addressing and interrupting everything on that bus.

Questions this Concept answers

  • Why does sorting devices by the bus they sit on let an operating system reuse code?