Inside Macintosh: Devices /

Chapter 2 - Slot Manager

This chapter describes how your application or device driver can use the Slot Manager to identify expansion cards and communicate with the firmware on a card.

You need to use the Slot Manager only if you are writing an application or a device driver that must address an expansion card directly. For example, you need to use the Slot Manager if you are writing a driver for a video card, but not if you only want to display information on a monitor for which a device driver already exists.

The Slot Manager provides functions to help you search through the data structures that expansion cards use to organize the information in their firmware. The meaning of the information in the data structures varies from card to card; you need to know the specifics of a card in order to interpret its data structures. To interpret these data structures, you need to know the information in Designing Cards and Drivers for the Macintosh Family, third edition, as well as information specific to the expansion card you're using.

This chapter begins with a brief introduction to Apple's implementation of the NuBus expansion interface. The NuBus interface provides a 32-bit-wide synchronous, multislot expansion bus for adding expansion cards to Macintosh computers. This introduction explains the firmware data structures of NuBus expansion cards, but does not provide much detail about the information these data structures contain. If you are designing an expansion card, you must read Designing Cards and Drivers for the Macintosh Family, third edition. If you are writing a driver for a device on a card, you should also read the chapter "Device Manager" in this book.

After introducing the NuBus architecture and expansion card design, this chapter discusses how you can

• enable and disable NuBus cards
• delete, restore, enable, disable, and find information in an expansion card's firmware
• install and remove slot interrupt handlers

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Chapter Contents

Introduction to Slots and Cards

Slot Address Allocations

Firmware

The sResource

Type and Name Entries

The Board sResource and Functional sResources

The sResource Directory

The Format Block

About the Slot Manager

Using the Slot Manager

Enabling and Disabling NuBus Cards

Deleting and Restoring sResources

Enabling and Disabling sResources

Searching for sResources

Obtaining Information From sResources

Installing and Removing Slot Interrupt Handlers

Slot Manager Reference

Data Structures

Slot Manager Parameter Block

Slot Information Record

Format Header Record

Slot Parameter RAM Record

Slot Execution Parameter Block

Slot Interrupt Queue Element

Slot Manager Routines

Determining the Version of the Slot Manager

Finding sResources

Getting Information From sResources

Enabling, Disabling, Deleting, and Restoring sResources

Loading Drivers and Executing Code From sResources

Getting Information About Expansion Cards and Declaration ROMs

Accessing Expansion Card Parameter RAM

Managing the Slot Interrupt Queue

Low-Level Routines

Summary of the Slot Manager

Pascal Summary

Constants

Data Types

Slot Manager Routines

Low-Level Routines

C Summary

Constants

Data Types

Slot Manager Functions

Low-Level Functions

Assembly-Language Summary

Data Structures

Trap Macros

Result Codes