Technical information

CHAPTER 5
System Software
What Is Different 89
IMPORTANT
Programs such as control panels and installers that use Box
Flag to verify that this is a valid CPU on which to execute
need to be changed to verify the existence of the hardware
they require. Developers should look for the features they
need, rather than reading the box flag and then making
assumptions about the computer’s features. ▲
Asset management software that reports the kind of machine it is run on can
obtain the value of the property at Devices:device-tree:compatible in the name
registry. The model string is the first program-useable string in the array of C
strings in the compatible field. For the 1999 PowerBook G3 Series computer, the
value of the compatible property is PowerBook1,1.
The string obtained from the compatible property cannot be displayed to the
computer user. A better method, if it is available, is to use the result from calling
Gestalt ('mnam', &result) where result is a string pointer. This call returns a
Pascal style string that can be displayed to the user.
Applications should not use either of these results to infer the presence of
certain features; instead, applications should use Gestalt calls to test for the
features they requires.