[harmon@metronet.com: GNU GAS i386 16 bit]

[artk@congruent.com (Arthur Kreitman)]

  The other issue is the future of OMF and 16 bit x86.  Microsoft's 32 bit
compilers all pump out a coff'ish object format.  And with new product 
releases, even Microsoft won't be supporting OMF.  Its difficult to see
why anyone would want to pay for work that will be useless by the time
its completed.,

  

   From: Michael Meissner <meissner@osf.org>
   Date: Thu, 25 Aug 94 09:52:18 -0400
   References: < 9408250416.AA13401@tweedledumb.cygnus.com >
	   < 9408251313.AA19072@Congruent.COM >

   | 
   |   I don't think you want to add 16 bit support even if someone pays 
   | you to do it.  The real issue is the binary format.  For object 
   | modules, the format is something called OMF.  The executable program
   | format is something else.  I would guess that adding OMF to gas (and
   | all that bfd stuff) will take man-years.

   If somebody pays reasonably to get the work done, I would certainly
   consider doing it, providing I wasn't employed at the time.  Others
   would too.  I'm sure Cygnus would do it if the cost was enough.

   Adding a new object format can certainly be done.  It depends on what
   trickyness is in OMF.  If it doesn't require things that aren't
   already in BFD (such as shared library support), it would be
   straigtforward.  That's what BFD is for in the first place.  I also
   seem to recall there are gas ports to OMF floating around (pre-BFD).
   You might ask DJ Delorie (dj@ctron.com), if he isn't on the mailing
   list for thoughts, since he is closer to the MSDOS world than most of
   us UNIX-oids/GNU-oids are.

   | 
   | 
   |    From: Ian Lance Taylor <ian@cygnus.com>
   |    Date: Thu, 25 Aug 94 00:16:31 EDT
   | 
   |    I know as little as possible about the i386, and I certainly know
   |    nothing about the differences between 16 and 32 bit mode.  Can anybody
   |    on this list help?  I'm sure that nobody at Cygnus plans to add
   |    support for 16 bit mode, unless, of course, we find somebody to pay
   |    for it.
   | 
   |    Ian
   | 
   |    Date: Wed, 24 Aug 1994 20:27:16 -0500
   |    From: Thomas Harmon <harmon@metronet.com>
   |    To: ian@tweedledumb.cygnus.com
   |    Subject: GNU GAS i386 16 bit
   | 
   | 
   |    Ian,
   | 
   | 	My name is Thomas Harmon.  I found your E-mail address in the 2.3
   |    version of GNU GAS.  Please excuse me for bothering you.  I would like to
   |    ask for your opinion on some modifications I would like to make to GAS.
   | 
   | 	I am working on a major project which requires a cross-platform,
   |    x86 assembler, for both 16 and 32 bit code.  That is where my problem lies,
   |    I know GAS does not currently support 16 bit code, but how much effort do
   |    you think it will take to add it?  Is this being planned for GAS?  If so,
   |    when do you think it will be done?  If it looks like I'll need to add 16-bit
   |    support myself, please send me a list of things I'll need to check.  I think
   |    I can figure it out from the 2.3 distribution, but I'd like to know about
   |    any special problems that are not immediately obvious.
   | 
   | 	Thank you for your time.
   | 
   |    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   |    Thomas Harmon                              "He's no fun, he fell right over."
   |    harmon@feenix.metronet.com                         -- Four or Five Crazy Guys
   |    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   | 
   | 
   | 
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