driver

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(1) A loudspeaker. The terms "driver" and "speaker" are used synonymously; however, "the speaker has four drivers" means that the speaker enclosure contains four speakers.

(2) A hardware device (typically a transistor) that provides a signal or current to trigger some function. See line driver.

(3) Also called a "device driver," it is a program routine that links the operating system to a peripheral device. Written by programmers who understand the peripheral hardware's command language and characteristics, the driver contains the precise machine language necessary to perform the functions requested by the application.

The Driver Is the Interface

When a new peripheral device is added to the computer, such as a display adapter, its driver must be installed in order to use it. The application calls the operating system, the operating system calls the driver, and the driver makes the device work (it "drives" the device). Routines that perform internal functions, such as memory managers and disk caches, are also drivers.

Drivers Can Drive You Crazy!

Sometimes, the solution to a problem is to update a driver, because the current version has bugs. Hardware vendors are always releasing newer versions. For example, everything you see on screen is the result of the display driver (video driver) drawing the screen according to the commands that the operating system issues to it. Such drivers are extremely complex and can be error prone.

There Used to Be More Drivers

In the "old" days of DOS PCs, in order to provide complete control over the printing of a document, software applications included a driver for each of the popular printers. With Windows and Mac, the printer driver is installed into the operating system, not into each application. All applications print through the OS, which commands the printer via the one driver for that printer. See filter driver and driver signing.

Windows Display Driver

PC Drivers

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1. The main loop of an event-processing program; the code that gets commands and dispatches them for execution.

2. [techspeak] In device driver, code designed to handle a particular peripheral device such as a magnetic disk or tape unit.

3. In the TeX world and the computerized typesetting world in general, a program that translates some device-independent or other common format to something a real device can actually understand.