Examples include the floppy disk controller on the Amstrad PCW, the 8087 coprocessor on the x86 when used in the IBM PC or its compatibles (even though Intel recommended connecting it to a normal interrupt[2]), and the Low Battery signal on the HP 95LX.
In the original IBM PC, an NMI was triggered if a parity error was detected in system memory, or reported by an external device.
Typically, this would restore the control registers to known good values stored in ROM, without destroying whatever data that the user might currently have loaded.
Commodore also connected the MOS Technology 6526 CIA #2 in the C64 and C128 to the processor's NMI line, which was part of the means by which software emulation of the 6551 ACIA was accomplished.
Debugging NMIs have appeared in a number of forms, including the Apple Macintosh's "programmers' button", and certain key combinations on Sun workstations.
With the introduction of Windows 2000, Microsoft allowed the use of an NMI to cause a system to either break into a debugger, or dump the contents of memory to disk and reboot.
Devices which added a button to generate an NMI, such as Romantic Robot's Multiface, were a popular accessory for 1980s 8-bit and 16-bit home computers.
Because these NMIs (often referred to as "vblank interrupts") occur at frequent, regular intervals, code that manipulates game graphics and audio is often executed inside of the NMI handler routine.