Non-maskable interrupt

Imagine you are playing with your toys, and your mom tells you that it's time for lunch. You stop what you are doing and go have lunch. This interruption by your mom is like a maskable interrupt, which means that you can choose to ignore it if you want to.

Now, let's say you are playing with your toys and the fire alarm goes off. You stop what you are doing and run outside because this is an important interruption that you can't ignore. This interruption by the fire alarm is like a non-maskable interrupt.

A non-maskable interrupt is a type of interruption that a computer can't ignore. It's usually caused by something critical happening that needs the computer's immediate attention. It's like a fire alarm going off for the computer.

When a non-maskable interrupt happens, the computer stops whatever it's doing and goes to handle the interrupt. This could be something like a hardware failure or an error that the computer needs to fix right away. The computer can't just keep doing what it was doing because the non-maskable interrupt is too important to ignore.

So, just like you have to stop playing with your toys when the fire alarm goes off, the computer has to stop what it's doing and handle a non-maskable interrupt when it happens.