Copyright ã1995 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 UNIXTMDevice Driver, Second Edition. Janet I. Egan and Thomas J. Teixeira. John Wiley and Sons, 1992.

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 SCOTMUNIXTM, 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 TechnologyÐLocal 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.