intro
—
introduction to macppc special files and hardware support
This section describes the special files, related driver functions, and
networking support available in the system. In this part of the manual, the
SYNOPSIS section of each configurable device gives a sample specification for
use in constructing a system description for the
config(1) program. The
DIAGNOSTICS section lists messages which may appear on the console and/or in
the system error log /var/log/messages due to errors
in device operation; see
syslogd(8) for more
information.
This section contains both devices which may be configured into
the system and network related information. The networking support is
introduced in
netintro(4).
This section describes the hardware supported on the Power Macintosh. Software
support for these devices comes in two forms. A hardware device may be
supported with a character or block device driver, or it may
be used within the networking subsystem and have a network
interface driver. Block and character devices are accessed through files
in the file system of a special type; see
mknod(8). Network interfaces
are indirectly accessed through the interprocess communication facilities
provided by the system; see
socket(2).
A hardware device is identified to the system at configuration
time and the appropriate device or network interface driver is then compiled
into the system. When the resultant system is booted, the autoconfiguration
facilities in the system probe for the device and, if found, enable the
software support for it. If a device does not respond at autoconfiguration
time it is not accessible at any time afterwards. To enable a device which
did not autoconfigure, the system will have to be rebooted.
The autoconfiguration system is described in
macppc/autoconf(4).
A list of the supported devices is given below.
The macppc intro
man page first appeared in
NetBSD 1.5.1, based on the
NetBSD/mac68k
macppc/intro(4).
The devices listed below are supported in this incarnation of the system.
Devices are indicated by their functional interface. Not all supported devices
are listed.
PCMCIA devices are supported through the
pcmcia(4) bus and
associated devices.
Cardbus devices are supported through the
cardbus(4) bus and
associated devices.
USB devices are supported through the
usb(4) bus and associated
devices.
Additionally, the following specific devices are supported:
- adb
- Apple Desktop Bus event interface.
- awacs
- Audio Waveform Amplifier and Converter — Apple Sound Chip
(supported systems include 603 and 604 based machines, and Open Firmware 3
based machines).
- bm
- BMac Ethernet.
- de
- DECchip 21x4x based Ethernet cards (see also
tlp(4)).
- esp
- NCR 53C9x built-in SCSI interface.
- gm
- GMac Ethernet.
- kmem
- kernel virtual memory.
- mc
- MACE Ethernet.
- mem
- physical memory.
- mesh
- MESH built-in SCSI interface (most Old World machines up to the 1999
series of G3 PowerBooks).
- nvram
- NVRAM access.
- ofb
- PCI based frame buffer with Open Firmware support.
- openfirm
- Open Firmware access.
- tlp
- DECchip 21x4x based Ethernet cards.
- wdc
- Standard on-board IDE controller.
- zsc
- Zilog Z8530 built-in serial interface.