title: Is the only way to raise a software interrupt on a x86 CPU through the BIOS?
body: <p>I was actually under the impression that this was kind of old fashioned, and that modern operating systems (Windows, Linux) were calling the CPU directly.</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT:</strong><br>
  I read it on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS_interrupt_call" rel="nofollow">BIOS interrupt call</a> article on wikipedia. </p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>For example, to print a character to the screen using BIOS interrupt 0x10 [...]</p>
  </blockquote>