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a.out support in dos (Announce)

posted by kerravon E-mail, Ligao, Free World North, 04.07.2021, 12:01

> > a.out (which
> > EMX 0.9d used, not sure about other DOS
> > extenders).
>
> (general question for all)
>
> Hello!
>
> I am experimenting with compilers. I am very interested in a.out as it is
> very simple. Can you tell me more - who also supports this format?
32-bit a.out executables are supported directly
by PDOS/386. It is the original format and the
loader and OS and command processor have not yet
been weaned off this. micro-emacs too.

You can build a.out modules using the gcc386/as386/etc
toolchain which I provide Win32 executables for on my
website (via link).

You can run those Win32 executables on virtually any
platform.

You can compile the gcc386 etc source code on any
C90-compliant compiler, doesn't have to be gcc,
although I've never actually tested other compilers,
and when I tried using Visual Studio, I got a
problem when running it against some C source
code. YMMV.

Is there something specific you want to know
or do?

I would advise switching to PE/COFF instead of
a.out if you can. There is public domain code
available to load PE/COFF, if you think it is
difficult (which it is, compared to a.out,
anyway).

Note that binutils actually deleted the i386-aout
target from the code base, so you'll need to go
back to an older version (as I did), if you wish
to use their code.

BFN. Paul.

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