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In original ISA none of this is managed, the owner of the PC is expected to manually configure both hardware and software appropriately.

So e.g. [with the PC turned off!] you move a tiny jumper (basically just a piece of conductive metal with a plastic housing) to the "IRQ 8" position and you pick "IRQ 8" in some menu or set it in an environment variable in DOS or whatever.

By the time PCI is starting to appear there is some level of "Plug and Plug ISA" but it's fairly crazy because of course all the old stuff still exists whereas for PCI the bus always had this intelligence baked in so nobody just assumes they can pick.

 help



It can't be IRQ 8 on an ISA board. That's the IRQ for the RTC.

That's correct. I considered whether I should dig out a manual and decided that I should do the exact opposite and pick a value I know won't exist for ISA.



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