RE: Newbie Device Driver Question

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• In reply to: Quizo: "Newbie Device Driver Question"
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Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 01:19:06 -0700

"Quizo" wrote:

> Please don't flame me.

That just begs for some heat.... <TORCH ON! ;->

 
> I'm interested in learning about device driver development. I'll get the
> DDK from Microsoft.
>
> But don't you need documentation from the manufacturer of the device you
> are creating a driver for? How should one go about getting this? Should I
> send an email to US Robotics technical support and hope that someone
> responds to it?
>
> My past experiences with any technical support haven't been good. I would
> have thought they'd make the info available for developers on their
> website, but they don't. Thanks.
>

It all depends on what position the manufacturer of the device takes. Back
in the days before Windows when every software package needed a driver for
every printer (for example), the printer manufacturers (e.g. HP) published
detailed documents and gave good support for driver writers for each of their
products.

As things have shifted greatly to the Windows model where the manufacturer
creates and supports the driver for everyone to use, they are less inclined
to support outside driver writers. This of course varies with each product
depending on the expected customer, operating systems, blah blah blah.

Anyway, it seems odd to be writing a Windows driver for some other company's
product (unless you are contracted to, of course). Why hasn't the
manufacturer taken care of this already?

If you are simply interested in creating a better driver than the company
did, they might not be interested in divulging their interface specs.

Good luck. (read, "have fun")

Anthony

• Previous message: Pavel A.: "RE: WZC vs OID_802_11_SSID..."
• In reply to: Quizo: "Newbie Device Driver Question"
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