In the below a synopsis of the device object and the operations it supports are given. Relationships A device is able to determine its relationship to other devices within the tree. Properties Attached to a device are a number of properties. A device is able to iterate over or query and set a properties value. Instances As with IEEE1275, a device can be opened, creating an instance.
Instances provide more abstract interfaces to the underlying hardware.
For example, the instance methods for a disk may include code that is able to interpret file systems found on disks. Such methods would there for allow the manipulation of files on the disks file system. For instance a pal device may need to notify a PCI bridge device that an interrupt ack cycle needs to be performed on the PCI bus.