Writing a UNIX
Device Driver, Second Edition. Janet I. Egan and Thomas J. Teixeira. John Wiley and Sons, 1992.
Copyright ©1995 by NeXT Computer, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Suggested Readings on
Writing Device Drivers
| These references provide useful information in a variety of areas for driver writers.
NeXT Documentation NEXTSTEP General Reference |
| This reference manual describes the Mach Kit, which contains the NXLock and NXConditionLock classes. |
| NEXTSTEP Development Tools and Techniques |
| This manual tells how to use development tools such as ProjectBuilder and gdb. |
| NEXTSTEP Operating System Software |
| This manual has information on the Mach Operating System and using Mach messages. It contains extensive material on writing Loadable Kernel Servers. |
| NEXTSTEP Object-Oriented Programming and the Objective C Language |
| This book explains the basic concepts of Objective C including Objective C messages, protocols, and categories. |
| NeXTanswers on archive sites |
| These files contain much useful information on NeXT device drivers and the Driver Kit. |
| Mach Operating System
Programming under Mach. Joseph Boykin, David Kirschen, Alan Langerman, and Susan LoVerso. Addison-Wesley, 1993. |
| An introduction to Mach tasks, threads, interprocess communication, and memory management. |
| General Driver Writing
Writing a UNIX |
| An excellent general introduction to UNIX drivers. Make sure you specify the second edition since the first one is very specific to System V and MassComp in particular. |
| Writing Device Drivers for SCOUNIX, A Practical Approach. Peter Kettle and Steve Statler. Addison-Wesley, 1993. |
| This book includes some details of Intel hardware. It contains a good reference section. |
| Buses
EISA System Architecture, Second Edition. Tom Shanley. Mindshare Press, 1993. ISA System Architecture, Second Edition. Tom Shanley and Don Anderson. Mindshare Press, 1993. PCI System Architecture, Second Edition. Tom Shanley. Mindshare Press, 1993. |
| This book tells how to work with a version 2.0 compliant bus. |
| PCMCIA System Architecture, Tom Shanley. Mindshare Press, 1994. |
| All of these books are distributed by Computer Literacy Bookshops. |
| Display Drivers
Programmer's Guide to the EGA and VGA Cards, Second Edition. Richard F. Ferraro. Addison-Wesley.
Network Drivers Besides the documentation for your hardware, the following references can help you write a Token Ring driver. Computer Networks. Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Prentice Hall, 1981. |
| Has information on networking, in general. |
| International Standard ISO/IEC 8802-3; ANSI/IEEE Std. 802.3.
IBM Token-Ring Network Architecture Technical Reference (SC30-3374-02). |
| This definitive and readable manual describes a superset of the 802.5 specification. You can get it from IBM or from IBM dealers. |
| Information Technology--Local and Metropolitan Area Networks. Part 5: Token Ring Access Method and Physical Layer Specifications. International Standard ISO/IEC 8802-5; ANSI/IEEE Std. 802.5. |
| This is the specification for 802.5. |