Problem: I/O is slow!
ä WRITE transfer control to
the printer driver (I/O
pgm)
ä I/O pgm prepare I/O
module for printing (4)
ä CPU has to WAIT for I/O
command to complete
ä Long wait for a printer
ä I/O pgm finishes in (5) and
report status of operation
ä User program is on hold
until WRITE terminates:
not very efficient!
ä Better: do something else
while I/O operation
completes