Apple Technical Notes

Apple Technical Notes answer many specific questions about the operation of Macintosh computers and the Mac OS. The notes are available on the Technical Note website at

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/

PowerPC G4 Microprocessor

Information about the PowerPC G4 microprocessor is available on the World Wide Web at

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/homepage.jsp?nodeId=0162468rH3bTdG

Velocity Engine (AltiVec)

Velocity Engine is Apple’s name for the AltiVec vector processor in the PowerPC G4 microprocessor. Apple provides support for developers who are starting to use the Velocity Engine in their applications. Documentation, development tools, and sample code are available on the Apple website, at

http://developer.apple.com/hardwaredrivers/ve/index.html

AltiVec Technology Programming Environments Manual (AltiVec PEM) is a reference guide for programmers. It contains a description for each instruction and information to help in understanding how the instruction works. You can obtain a copy of the AltiVec PEM through the Frescale AtliVec documentation website.

3D Graphics

Developers of 3D graphics for games should know about OpenGL for Macintosh, a version of SGI’s application programming interface (API) and software library for 3D graphics.

Information is available on the World Wide Web at

http://www.apple.com/opengl

Developer support and documentation is available at

http://developer.apple.com/opengl/

Mac OS X

Initially, the PowerMac G4 computer ships with Mac OS X 10.2.3 installed as the default operating system; later in the release, it will ship with Mac OS X 10.2.4. The classic environment can be used to run Mac OS 9 applications For access to Apple’s developer documentation for Mac OS X, see the Apple Developer Connection (ADC) website at

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/index.html

and

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Carbon/Reference/Multiprocessing_Services/index.html

O'Reilly & Associates publishes a series of books about Mac OS X development. The books in this series have been technically reviewed by Apple engineers and are recommended by the Apple Developer Connection.

ROM-in-RAM Architecture

The system software in all current Macintosh computers uses a ROM-in-RAM approach, also called the NewWorld architecture. For more information refer to ROM-in-RAM.

Open Firmware

The software architecture implemented on current Macintosh computers follows the standard defined by the Open Firmware IEEE 1274-1994 specification. Three Technotes provide an introduction to Open Firmware on the Macintosh platform. They are

TN 1061: Open Firmware, Part I, available on the Technote web site at

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1061.html

TN 1062: Open Firmware, Part II, at

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1062.html

TN 1044: Open Firmware, Part III, at

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1044.html

Other Technotes provide additional information about Open Firmware on the Macintosh.

TN 2000: PCI Expansion ROMs and You, at

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2000.html

TN 2001: Running Files from a Hard Drive in Open Firmware, at

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2001.html

TN 2004: Debugging Open Firmware Using Telnet, at

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2004.html

RAM Expansion Modules

The PowerMac G4 computer uses PC2100- or PC2700-compliant, 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMMs.

The electrical and mechanical characteristics of the DIMM are given in JEDEC Standard 21-C. The specification can be found by using the search string JESD21-C on the Electronics Industry Association’s website at

http://www.jedec.org/DOWNLOAD/default.cfm

ATA Devices

ATA (AT Attachment), also referred to as integrated drive electronics (IDE), is a standard interface used with storage devices such as hard disk drives. For more information on ATA, refer to the following Apple website at

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/DeviceManagers/ata/ata.html

ATA Manager 4.0 supports driver software for internal IDE drives and includes DMA support. For the latest information about ATA Manager 4.0, see Technical Note #1098, ATA Device Software Guide Additions and Corrections, available on the World Wide Web at

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1098.html

The web page for Technical Note #1098 includes a link to a downloadable copy of ATA Device Software Guide.

Information about the ATA standards is available at the Technical Committee T13 AT Attachment website, at

http://www.t13.org/

USB Interface

For more information about USB on the Macintosh computer, refer to Apple Computer’s Mac OS USB DDK API Reference. Information is also available on the World Wide Web, at

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/DeviceManagers/usb/usb.html

USB game controllers are supported by the InputSprocket component of the Apple Games Sprockets software architecture. InputSprocket software and information about the InputSprocket APIs can be found at

http://developer.apple.com/games/

For full specifications of the Universal Serial Bus, you should refer to the USB Implementation Forum on the World Wide Web, at

http://www.usb.org/developers/docs

FireWire Interface

For additional information about the FireWire IEEE 1394a and 1394b interfaces and the Apple API for FireWire software, refer to the resources available on the Apple FireWire website at

http://developer.apple.com/hardwaredrivers/firewire/

The IEEE 1394a and 1394b standards are available from the IEEE; you can order these documents electronically from the IEEE Standards Department website at

http://shop.ieee.org/store

You may also find useful information at the 1394 trade association’s website at

http://www.1394ta.org/

Digital Visual Interface

For information about transition minimized differential signaling (TMDS) used with digital video monitors, see the specification, Digital Visual Interface DVI Revision 1.0, available on the website of the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG) at

http://www.ddwg.org/

Wireless Networks

More information about Wi-Fi and wireless networks using the IEEE 802.11 standard is available on the Wi-Fi Alliance Knowledge Center.

Bluetooth

For more information regarding Bluetooth technology, refer to the following locations on the World Wide Web.

Bluetooth specification:

http://www.bluetooth.com/

Bluetooth SIG:

http://www.bluetooth.org/apps/content/

Bluetooth developer tools on the Apple web site at:

http://developer.apple.com/hardwaredrivers/bluetooth/