[PLUG] Getting a USB device on Mac

[Jason Martin]

On Nov 16, 2007 8:59 AM, Paul Charles Leddy <pcleddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ya, this is on MacBook "Pro".
>
> I see nothing in /var/log/system.log, strange, maybe the report level
> is set to MUTE, joking.
>
> These are all the devices I am seeing:
>
> paul:~ paul$ ls -l /dev/disk*
> brw-r-----   1 root  operator   14,   0 Nov  5 14:16 /dev/disk0
> brw-r-----   1 root  operator   14,   1 Nov  5 14:16 /dev/disk0s1
> brw-r-----   1 root  operator   14,   2 Nov  5 14:16 /dev/disk0s2
>
> Must there be a custom driver for each USB device, or is there some
> standard that might be allowing it to "just work"?

OS X has multiple ways to access device, including through the BSD
part of the kernel (/dev/*) or through the I/O registry.

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeviceDrivers/Conceptual/AccessingHardware/AH_Other_APIs/chapter_2_section_2.html

If you have Xcode installed there should be a utility called I/O
Registry Explorer you could poke around in to see if something is
registered there.

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeviceDrivers/Conceptual/IOKitFundamentals/TheRegistry/chapter_4_section_3.html

If you don't have Xcode installed, you can probably find out some
information from System Profiler.  Unfortunately I don't know much
else beyond that :-)

Jason