Method and system for configuring a timer
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsBruce Sherwin, Eric Nelson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention facilitates access to timers in a computing device. In particular, a timer system facilitates configuring a hardware interrupt timer in a computing device, the timer being guaranteed to expire at a specific time in a non-real-time environment. A calling application passes parameters to a hardware independent application programming interface (API) to the hardware interrupt timer. The hardware independent API validates the parameters and relays them to a hardware dependent API. The hardware dependent API establishes a connection with the timer in accordance with the validated parameters, and executes a service routine associated with the application upon expiration of the timer.
Claims20
A method for configuring a timer in a computing device, the method comprising:
- receiving a request from an application to set a hardware interrupt timer;
- validating the request in a hardware-independent process;
- relaying the validated request to a hardware-dependent process;
- and
- setting the hardware interrupt timer in the hardware-dependent process to expire in accordance with the validated request.
A system to configure a timer in a computing device, the system comprising:
- a timer substantially guaranteed to expire at a time certain;
- a hardware-independent interface to the timer;
- a hardware-dependent interface to the timer;
- and
- a processor in which the hardware-independent interface operates to validate a request from an application to set the timer and to relay the validated request to the hardware-dependent process, and further in which the hardware-dependent interface operates to set the timer to expire in accordance with the validated request and to execute a timer service routine upon expiration of the timer.
A computer-accessible medium having instructions for setting a timer in a computing device, the instructions comprising:
- a hardware-independent process to:
- receive a request in from an application to set a timer in a computing device, the timer being substantially guaranteed to expire at a time certain;
- determine whether the application is privileged to make the request;
- validate parameters associated with the request;
- and
- a hardware-dependent process to set the timer to expire in accordance with the validated parameters.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.