As described above, an interrupt handler is a system routine that exclusively handles all processing related to a particular 4703 interrupt. There can only be one handler per 4703 interrupt. Every interrupt handler consists of an Interrupt structure (as defined above) and a single assembly code routine. Optionally, a data structure pointer may also be provided. This is particularly useful for ROM-resident interrupt code. An interrupt handler is passed control as if it were a subroutine of Exec. Once the handler has finished its business, it must return to Exec by executing an RTS (return from subroutine) instruction rather than an RTE (return from exception) instruction. Interrupt handlers should be kept very short to minimize service-time overhead and thus minimize the possibilities of interrupt overruns. As described above, an interrupt handler has the normal scratch registers at its disposal. In addition, A5 and A6 are free for use. These registers are saved by Exec as part of the interrupt initiation cycle. For the sake of efficiency, Exec passes certain register parameters to the handler (see the list below). These register values may be utilized to trim a few microseconds off the execution time of a handler. All of the following registers (D0/D1/A0/A1/A5/A6) may be used as scratch registers by an interrupt handler, and need not be restored prior to returning. Don't Make Assumptions About Registers. --------------------------------------- Interrupt servers have different register usage rules (see the "Interrupt Servers" section). Interrupt Handler Register Usage