[Ryan Foley]

Originally posted by skyman9000
MIPS is million instructions per second

Direct access to I/O means that you can access the pin inputs and ouputs for the controller and read and/or manipulate their values directly.

Interrupts are what a controller uses to perform other tasks outside the main program loop. The processor goes off for a while to process the interrupt and comes back to the main code where it left off (Could be used for sensor polling etc).

You should grab a good book on microcontrollers if you are really interested. It should explain all this stuff. Or just do a search on google.

Thanks.