Vax/VMS Device Driver Student Guide

This document is a student guide for a VAX/VMS device driver course designed for experienced system programmers. The course aims to teach participants how to write or modify UNIBUS or MASSBUS device drivers for the VAX/VMS system, understand the VMS I/O architecture, and utilize driver-debugging techniques.

Key learning objectives include identifying device driver data structures and routines, understanding the I/O request sequence, writing and integrating device drivers, and debugging them using tools like XDELTA and SDA. Prerequisites for the course are fluency in VAX-11 MACRO language and completion of the VAX/VMS Operating System Internals Course.

The course is organized into a lecture/lab format, with content structured into modules. Each module contains an introduction, learning objectives, supplementary resources, examples, and a test. The course outline covers introductory material (overview, I/O data structures, I/O sequence), driver writing (driver tables, FDT routines, required/optional routines), driver testing (incorporation, debugging), and supplementary topics. A variety of manuals and handbooks are provided as resources.