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Learning to write drivers?
- Thread starter aphetica
- Start date
Most of the info is still on Apple's site, I think. developer.apple.com.
Else there are the developer CDs Apple released in the 90's with sample code.
There are books about development, too, but probably not about driver development as such. But if you're completely green it's not the first thing you want to try and tackle either.
Else there are the developer CDs Apple released in the 90's with sample code.
There are books about development, too, but probably not about driver development as such. But if you're completely green it's not the first thing you want to try and tackle either.
II2II
Well-known member
The Code Warrior 9 Gold CDs had a few "learn to program " books in PDF format. They did cover the basics. And some of those basics are pretty messy on the classic Mac OS, so it would probably be a good jumping-off point for drivers.
Check out Inside Macintosh. They should cover driver development, and certainly cover DA development. If I recall correctly, DAs are just a special case for device driver programming.
Also look for articles in the MacTech archives.
Check out Inside Macintosh. They should cover driver development, and certainly cover DA development. If I recall correctly, DAs are just a special case for device driver programming.
Also look for articles in the MacTech archives.
Charlieman
Well-known member
The old Mac archives such as Umich had collections of programming frameworks. You might be able to save some time by using an existing framework that contains all of the right headers etc.
II2II
Well-known member
Desk accessories were tiny applications that you started from the Apple menu, and they were common in the System 6 era and earlier. (System 7 through 9 allowed you to put pretty much anything in the Apple menu.)
These systems didn't support multitasking (or, in the case of System 6, it could be disabled) so an alternative means of having concurrently open programs had to be developed. This mechanism was through writing the second program as a device driver.
Of course, this had trade-offs. Which is why it wasn't done for major programs. One trade-off was that DA development was more complex since it was a device driver and it had to communicate with the currently running application. There were probably resource limitations too, since most DAs are small.
These systems didn't support multitasking (or, in the case of System 6, it could be disabled) so an alternative means of having concurrently open programs had to be developed. This mechanism was through writing the second program as a device driver.
Of course, this had trade-offs. Which is why it wasn't done for major programs. One trade-off was that DA development was more complex since it was a device driver and it had to communicate with the currently running application. There were probably resource limitations too, since most DAs are small.
