in general , in one aspect , the invention features a method for reducing the elapsed period between the time an interrupt acknowledge is issued by a cpu and the time when the corresponding interrupt vector is received at the cpu . when a device connected to a lower speed bus sends an interrupt request , an interrupt queue device , connected to the cpu by a higher speed bus , intercepts the interrupt request , temporarily stores the corresponding interrupt vector and then responds to an interrupt acknowledge from the cpu by delivering the temporarily stored interrupt vector on the higher speed bus . in addition , the interrupt queue can deliver the temporarily stored interrupt vector to the cpu on a separate serial line .