A method and system for socket API call emulation facilitates communication between an application and non-networked I/O devices. The present invention intercepts and modifies IP-aware socket API calls en route from the application to non-networked I/O devices so that such calls are received by non-networked I/O devices as IP-unaware I/O access calls. The invention allows the application to use socket API calls to communicate with all entity types and thereby relieves an application developer of the burden to write and debug/edit separate code and documentation for non-networked I/O device types with which an application is expected to communicate. Socket API call emulation is in some embodiments performed by an emulation module within a socket API operatively coupled between an application and a device driver associated with a non-networked I/O device.