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Technical Q&As: Darwin
The I/O Kit is the device driver subsystem of Mac OS X and is part of Darwin. The I/O Kit provides a set of C functions and C++ classes, including object-oriented abstractions common to various families of drivers. In addition, for many device types, the I/O Kit provides a device interface that enables an application to communicate with and control a device from user space.

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Common QA and Roadmap for USB Software Development on Mac OS X (HTML)
QA1370: Roadmap for development of USB Software on Mac OS X and some Common Questions and Answers
2004-09-22
Generating an NMI Without a Programmer's Switch (HTML) ()
QA1264: Explains how to generate a non-maskable interrupt (NMI) on CPUs without programmer's switches.
2004-04-26
Issues with boot time KEXT loading (HTML) ()
QA1087: Explains how to solve problems with loading KEXTs at boot time.
2004-01-15
Installing an I/O Kit KEXT Without Rebooting (HTML)
QA1319: Describes the state of the art of installing I/O Kit kernel extensions (KEXTs) without requiring a restart.
2003-10-28
Sleep vs. Doze on Mac OS X (HTML)
QA1309: Discusses and demonstrates sleep versus doze detection on Machintosh Mac OS X
2003-10-09
PCI/PCI-X slots on the Power Mac G5 (HTML)
QA1307: Discusses installing PCI/PCI-X cards of different speeds in the Power Mac G5.
2003-09-30
Can't attach during two-machine debugging with GDB (HTML) ()
Deprecated - QA1019: Describes a workaround for a problem attaching during two-machine debugging on Mac OS X 10.0.x.
2003-06-02
Programmatically causing restart, shutdown and/or logout (HTML) ()
QA1134: Describes how to programmatically cause restart, shutdown, sleep or logout.
2003-02-10
Mapping kernel memory to user space on Mac OS X 10.2 (HTML) ()
QA1197: Describes a change to mapping kernel memory to user space affecting Mac OS X 10.2 and later.
2002-09-13
Retain Counts of io_object_t Objects in IOKit.framework (HTML) ()
QA1195: Distinguishes between the retain counts of an I/O Kit kernel object and its io_object_t user space proxy.
2002-09-04
IODeviceTree & the IORegistry (HTML) ()
QA1120: Describes the IODeviceTree plane in the Mac OS X IORegistry.
2002-02-13
IOLog and Interrupt Context (HTML) ()
QA1100: Describes when IOKit runs at primary (hardware) interrupt context.
2002-02-13
Power Management; Policy Maker vs. Power Controller (HTML) ()
QA1121: Describes the differences between a Power Management Policy Maker and a Power Management Power Controller.
2002-02-13
Working with Configuration Variables (HTML) ()
QA1119: Explains how to delete a specific Open Firmware configuration variable without using Command-Option-P-R.
2002-02-13
Making sense of IOKit error codes (HTML) ()
QA1075: Explains how to interpret I/O Kit error codes.
2002-02-07
IOKit Framework Headers (HTML) ()
QA1107: Describes the differences between the headers in IOKit.framework and the I/O Kit headers in Kernel.framework.
2002-01-15
Adding dependencies with kmodload (HTML)
QA1097: Illustrates how to specify dependencies when using kmodload.
2001-12-05
The dreaded "incompatible flag -framework" error (HTML)
QA1096: Explains how to eliminate the incompatible flag -framework error in Project Builder.
2001-12-05
Mac OS X and root access (HTML)
QA1013: Describes how to enable root access in Mac OS X.
2001-03-13
Open Firmware Memory bus speed (HTML)
HW97: Describes a method to display memory bus speed for G3 or G4 Macintosh in Open Firmware.
2000-09-22
Is the Open Firmware device tree object oriented? (HTML)
HW80: Discusses the object-oriented attributes of the Open Firmware device tree.
1999-11-15
Are the Name Registry device tree nodes unique? (HTML)
Deprecated - HW64: Discusses whether Name Registry nodes copied from the Open Firmware device tree are unique.
1999-10-11
Determining Open Firmware configuration variables (HTML) ()
HW56: Discusses how to determine the Open Firmware variables on a system.
1999-03-29
Expansion ROM device properties (HTML) ()
HW50: Describes the Open Firmware properties that should be included in a boot device's expansion ROM.
1999-03-29