Programming Questions: DOS/Windows External Devices

[FulhamFan3]

I'm taking my first programming class and I have some questions. How does your program access external devices like a printer or modem? I know in linux everything has a corresponding file but I have no idea how it works in dos/windows.

 

[chroot]

In general, your application program communicates with a driver, which is a piece of software that knows how to talk directly to the hardware. The driver generally communicates with hardware by reading and writing to various addresses. These addresses are not associated with memory, but instead with some of the various chips inside the computer. Some of the chips do serial communication; others do parallel, others do USB, and so on. When you read and write to those addresses, you are moving data between the processor and those chips, which then communicate with the printer or modem.

- Warren

 

[ravenprp]

In DOS/Windows, external devices such as printers or modems can be accessed through device drivers. Device drivers are software programs that act as an interface between the operating system and the external device. These drivers are responsible for translating the commands from the operating system into a language that the external device can understand and vice versa.

In order to access a printer or modem, your program would need to communicate with the device driver. This can be done through the use of specific commands or APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that are provided by the driver. These commands allow your program to send and receive data to and from the external device.

Unlike in Linux, where everything is treated as a file, DOS/Windows uses a different approach. Each external device has its own device driver, and the operating system communicates with the device through this driver. This allows for more efficient and specific communication with the device.

I hope this helps answer your question and provides some insight into how external devices are accessed in DOS/Windows programming. Good luck with your programming class!