Functions of drivers in windows operating system?

Answer 1

Windows did more for computers than just offering a point-and-click interface; it also offered developers a common platform.

Let us look at printers, for example.

In the "old days" (I was there, you young whippersnappers ;) if you were going to write a piece of software, you needed to also take into account who would be using it, and with what hardware. Printers have a language all of their own. There is PCL (Printer Control Language), PS (PostScript), and a bunch of different languages for ink jet, dot matrix, daisy wheel, and different laser printers.

To develop software back in those days, you had to write your own drivers. In other words, you would either have to do a LOT of programming to make your software compatible with all the hardware out there (because each printer took a different code to turn on bold print, for example), or you had to limit your software (and potentially your market) by saying "Required: PCL Laser Printer".

Windows did away with that, by using drivers that would do the interpretation FOR the programmer. In other words, a programmer can now say "Type this on the printer, in bold, centered", and pass that to a driver. The driver then looks at that standardized command coming from windows, and interprets it to the specific command for whatever printer is installed.

So, essentially, a driver is an interpreter, which interprets a common language from your software to Windows, to the specific language needed by the hardware.