Re: traditional Intel & Microsoft formats...

[dj@stealth.ctron.com (DJ Delorie)]

> How much would supporting those Microsoft formats buy us over what
> DJ Delorie has already done with DJGPP and GO32?  (Please excuse my
> cluelessness, I've never done development on DOS or Windows and know
> next to nothing about their file formats &c.)

It's like having a Unix compiler that can't produce X programs.  Djgpp
can build text-based programs, but can't build graphics programs
(Win32s or NT) because it can't generate the executable (it's
different than a command-line executable).

> Hm.  I could believe it might be significantly different from the
> formats we use on other systems, but man-years of work?  Is it
> *that* different?

Well, I think man-months or less, assuming you already know the file
formats and basic linking theory.  This doesn't include the resource
compiler that you'll need to write to go along with the library, which
is probably another few man-months.

> The primary goal would be to produce working executables.  Using
> object and library formats compatible with the native tools would be
> a plus, but not absolutely necessary, especially if the vendor is
> anal about releasing information.

The obj and lib is straight unix COFF.  It's just the executable
that's weird.