a method and apparatus for an innovative hardware independent interface to the external world . the interrupt services are part of an overall i / o model providing an object base i / o system that supports dynamic configuration of the system . the design of these interrupt exploit the advantages of object oriented design in an otherwise disorderly world of i / o . object processing is designed into the architecture at the lowest level routines in the preferred embodiment of the invention . this includes an object oriented design all the way down to interrupt processing abstractions . these interrupt abstractions provide an architecturally sound framework for the dynamic installation , configuration , and timely execution of interrupt handlers .