From: "A.Appleyard" <A DOT APPLEYARD AT fs2 DOT mt DOT umist DOT ac DOT uk>
To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 08:37:03 GMT
Subject: .exe file format

Aaron Ucko <UCKO AT VAX1 DOT ROCKHURST DOT EDU> wrote (Subject: Re: GNAT-ADA-DOS bugs?):-

> ... DOS actually treats COMs and EXEs equally, trying to parse an EXE header
> if the first two bytes are 'M' and 'Z' (not necessarily in that order!) and
> just executing the contents of the file as raw code otherwise.

Where anywhere at all can I find information on the internal format and layout
of .COM and .EXE etc files?

If a .COM file did start with `MZ' or `ZM', would that correspond with any
legal or likely PC instructions?