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Technical Notes
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.

Device Drivers Resources
A guided introduction and learning path for developers writing software that accesses devices in Mac OS X.   Essential information for developers working with device drivers.   Descriptions of driver interface elements, by library and framework.
Device Drivers Topics
Programming interfaces that support access to storage devices, such as hard disk drives, that use the ATA or ATA/ATAPI-5 interfaces.   Programming interfaces that support access to FireWire devices. FireWire is an implementation of the IEEE 1394 standards.   Programming interfaces that support access to random-access and sequential-access devices that provide data storage, including those that mount file systems or are bootable.

Programming interfaces for developing in-kernel and application-level access for high-quality audio devices.   Programming interfaces that support access to network configuration, networking devices, or network stacks.   Programming interfaces that support access to Open Firmware for purposes of debugging and testing.

Programming interfaces that support access to devices that use PCI and PC Card technologies, such as devices that require low-latency communication.   The command sets and physical interfaces defined by the SCSI Architecture Model specifications.  

View legacy technologies, including technologies, features, products, APIs, and programming techniques that are no longer supported or have been superseded.