Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 09:51:21 +0800 (GMT)
From: Orlando Andico <orly AT gibson DOT eee DOT upd DOT edu DOT ph>
To: cdamond AT uclink2 DOT berkeley DOT edu
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: cross-compiling: FROM linux TO msdos
In-Reply-To: <56lkks$gpg@agate.berkeley.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.SGI.3.93.961117093949.1369A-100000@gibson.eee.upd.edu.ph>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On 17 Nov 1996 cdamond AT uclink2 DOT berkeley DOT edu wrote:

> I'm trying to compile a C cross-compiler out of the gcc sources.  I want
> it run with an i486-unknown-linux host and i486-unknown-msdos target, and
> I'm compiling it on an i486-unknown-linux (host==server).  Thus, this is
> sort of the inverse of djgpp.
[...]

If what you want is a Linux-hosted GCC which outputs DOS binaries, then
look no further than MOSS ("a soft blanket over the rocky slopes of DOS"). 

Here's some information I cut from the HTML documentation (the whole thing
is at <http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flux/moss/moss.html> and there's
even a DVI version of the Flux paper on which MOSS is based).

---
MOSS is a new DOS extender with the following major features: 

    Can be used royalty-free in commercial and non-commercial products.
    Full support for DPMI, VCPI, XMS, and ``raw'' DOS modes.
    Supports up to 2GB of virtual and physical memory.
    Demand-loading of executables for quick startup times.
    Supports POSIX low-level file I/O as well as ANSI C I/O.
    Processor exceptions can be delivered as POSIX signals.
    Hardware interrupts can be delivered as POSIX.1b real-time queued
    signals (except under DPMI).
    Traditional-DOS-extender-like interrupt revectoring also available
    under all environments.
    Supports the POSIX.1b memory locking API (mlock et al).
    Remote source-level debugging over a serial line using GDB.
    Full cross-development from Linux and other Unix-compatible OS's.
    Uses i386 ELF object files and executables.
    Allows a program and any associated data files to be attached to MOSS,
    forming one big DOS executable.
    Written almost entirely in easy-to-modify C code.
    Can be compiled completely using the freely-available GNU development
    tools (i.e. doesn't require a commercial compiler/assembler to handle
    the 16-bit x86 code). 

---

Honestly I haven't tried MOSS myself, as I work mostly in a UNIX
environment and for my rare forays into DOS I use DJGPP because that's
what I've always used.

Cheers.


.-----------------------------------------------------------------.
| Orlando Andico                email: orly AT gibson DOT eee DOT upd DOT edu DOT ph |
| IRC Lab/EE Dept/UP Diliman   http://gibson.eee.upd.edu.ph/~orly |
|  "through adventure we are not adventuresome" -- 10000 Maniacs  |
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