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Input / Output
The Nintendo 64 system spends a good deal of its time performing I/O operations. The operating system provides an optimized I/O interface layer that directly communicates with the hardware. Some of these interfaces include:
The interface routines communicate with a video manager system thread, called the VI/Timer manager. This thread receives all vertical retrace interrupts and programs the video hardware. In addition, it also receives all counter interrupt messages and implements timer services.
The PI also has an associated I/O manager thread, the PI manager. It manages access to the ROM cartridge so that two threads do not attempt to DMA from ROM to RAM at the same time.
This interface programs the audio hardware to output the desired sample rate and manages access to the audio data buffer.
It is mostly of interest because it has an associated system event when a DP operation is complete.
This interface resets, detects, obtains status, queries and reads data from the game controllers.
Copyright © 1999
Nintendo of America Inc. All Rights Reserved
Nintendo and N64 are registered trademarks of Nintendo
Last Updated January, 1999