Short: GUI utility for testing device driver operations.
Author: agmsmith@achilles.net (Alexander G. M. Smith)
Uploader: agmsmith@achilles.net (Alexander G. M. Smith)
Website: http://www.achilles.net/~agmsmith/
Version: 1.0
Type: development/debugging, system files/drivers/miscellaneous
Requires: BeOS 5.0+

AGMSDeviceTest was simple program for trying out various device
commands.  Now it has a fancy user interface.  Besides the usual
reading and writing of data, you can issue standard device control
messages.

The user interface consists of a hierarchy of parts: device name,
action choices (read / write / ioctl), arguments, subarguments, and
results display.  For example, if you want to eject the CD-ROM you
would click on the Browse button, select your CD-ROM device (mine is
/dev/disk/ide/atapi/1/master/0/raw, yours depends on which drive
controller hardware it is plugged into), and click the Open button.  A
subview will appear offering you the choice of reading, writing or
controlling the device.  Click on the Control radio button, since Eject
is done with an IOCtl system call.  The display will change to show the
control operation choice (defaulting to B_GET_ICON) and various
parameters relevant to that control operation.  Change the B_GET_ICON
to B_EJECT_DEVICE by using the pop-up menu or by typing 12 into the
Opcode box (hit TAB after typing to make the number change take
effect).  The display will change to show a verbose description of the
eject operation.  Next, hit the Execute button to actually do it.  Your
CD-ROM drive should pop out the CD.  You can try B_LOAD_MEDIA to do the
opposite operation.  When you are done, you can quit the application
the usual way or use the Close button and try another device.

Put a checkmark in the Write checkbox if you want to write data to the
device, otherwise it will be opened in read only mode (though IOCtl
operations like Format can still be done - depending on the device).

The Create checkbox creates the file rather than opening it.  This is
only useful for creating logical partition devices, where you then use
the B_SET_PARTITION operation.

Why am I writing this?  I'm just trying to see how the floppy and
CD-ROM work so that I can get my removeable RAM disk mounted on the
desktop without using DriveSetup.  It's also an exercise in writing a
BeOS GUI.

AGMSDeviceTest is released to the public domain.  You can do whatever
you want with it.  However, all benefits and loses are yours, not mine.
You can erase all the information on your hard drive quite easily with
this program, so be careful.

- Alex (Ottawa, December 2000)