The Device Kit contains software for controlling various input/output devices and for writing your own device drivers. You'll find two kinds of software documented in this chapter:
These classes are all part of the shared system library, libbe.so . Their header files are collected in DeviceKit.h and are precompiled with the header files of other kits.
The programming interfaces for device drivers are not included in the master DeviceKit.h header file or the precompiled headers; this part of the Kit doesn't belong to the Be system library. A driver links only against its host module (or perhaps statically against a private library), not against the system library.
If you're interested in the interface to a joystick or serial port, you need read only about the BJoystick or BSerialPort class. If you're interested in the GeekPort interface, there's a small section that introduces the port and its three classes; look at it before turning to the particular class that interests you. If you're interesting in writing a device driver, skip the first part of the chapter and begin with Developing a Device Driver .
The Be Book, HTML Edition, for Developer Release 8 of the Be Operating System.
Copyright © 1996 Be, Inc. All rights reserved.
Be, the Be logo, BeBox, BeOS, BeWare, and GeekPort are trademarks of Be, Inc.
Last modified September 6, 1996.