INTRO(4)

NAME
intro - introduction to special files and hardware support

DESCRIPTION
The manual pages in section 4 describe 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(8) 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).

DEVICE SUPPORT
This section describes the hardware supported on the Mac. 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 autoconf(4). A list of the supported devices is given below.

LIST OF DEVICES
The devices listed below are supported in this incarnation of the system. Pseudo-devices are not listed. Devices are indicated by their functional interface. Not all supported devices are listed.

adb(4)
    Apple Desktop Bus driver
ae(4)
    DP8390-based NuBus Ethernet device
akbd(4)
    Apple Keyboard Device
ams(4)
    Apple Mouse Support
asc(4)
    Apple Sound Chip on-board audio device
esp(4)
    ESP NCR 53c96 on-board SCSI interface
macfb(4)
    Macintosh frame buffers
mc(4)
    Am79C940 (MACE) on-board Ethernet device
ncrscsi(4)
    NCR 5380 on-board SCSI interface
sbc(4)
    NCR 5380 on-board SCSI interface
sm(4)
    SMC91C9x and SMC91C1xx-based 10/100 Ethernet device
sn(4)
    SONIC-based Ethernet device
zsc(4)
    Zilog 8530 (ZSCC) serial communications driver

SEE ALSO
autoconf(4), config(8)

HISTORY
The Mac68k intro first appeared in NetBSD 1.2.