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Technical Q&As
Apple provides opportunities for developers to create hardware devices, including memory, mass storage, PCI, CardBus, USB, FireWire, and wireless solutions. Developer notes listed in the Apple Hardware topic provide relevant connector, cabling, and pin-out information, physical dimensions, electrical and thermal requirements, and pointers and references to standards.

Hardware Resources
A guided introduction and learning path to developing hardware and device-level software for Apple's computers and servers.  
Hardware Topics
View the complete Hardware Technical Q&As List.
A standard interface used with storage devices, including hard disk drives and removable storage devices.   Apple's wireless network technology, based on the IEEE 802.11 standards, that delivers fast and reliable communications between multiple computers in a local area network and between that network and the Internet.   Apple computers, including laptop, desktop, and rack-mountable machines.

An open specification that enables low-bandwidth, short-range wireless communication between computers and peripherals, such as mobile phones, mice, and personal data assistants.   Programming interfaces that support the development of in-kernel and application-level hardware device access.   A packet-based networking technology that operates at speeds up to 1 gigabit per second on local area wired networks.

A high-speed data-transfer architecture especially useful for connecting hardware storage devices to computers on local networks.   A high-performance, cross-platform peripheral standard that supports high-bandwidth devices. FireWire is an implementation of the IEEE 1394 standards.   Any device that humans use to control a computer's operations. Some of these devices can vibrate or provide other tactile feedback, called force feedback.

Opportunities for developers to create hardware devices compatible with Mac OS X Server.   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.

Protocols and services that support networking and communication capabilities of hardware devices.   Open Firmware that complies with IEEE Std 1275-1994. It controls a computer between the time it is turned on and the time the primary operating system takes control of the machine.   Cards that are typically used for devices requiring low-latency communication.

Tools, techniques, and programming interfaces for measuring, evaluating, and improving performance of hardware devices.   Technologies that help developers achieve high quality output from their applications and printer hardware.   A cross-platform multimedia technology supporting devices that handle video, sound, animation, graphics, text, interactivity, and music.

A technology that allows a computer or other device to register a network service that an application or user can discover by name or by browsing.   The command sets and physical interfaces defined by the SCSI Architecture Model specifications.   Devices that create a digital representation of a physical data source, such as a document.

Application access to serial devices such as modems, printers, data terminals, Bluetooth RFCOMM channels, and transport layer drivers providing serial communications services.   Devices that create digital images by capturing and focusing light onto light-sensing components instead of onto conventional film.   A cross-platform peripheral standard that supports hot-plugging and expandability for low-cost, low-bandwidth devices.

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