Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.os.mach
Subject: Re: Mach-O and COFF
Message-ID: <7552@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 1 May 91 17:24:18 GMT
References: <1991Apr30.054735.7606@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <MIKE.91Apr30163345@yalla.tuwien.ac.at>
Distribution: na
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 17

>and you can also store core dumps in Mach-O!

COFF's replacement in S5R4, ELF, also allows this.

>Mach-O is more universal, it allows you to assign start values to
>registers (does this work in COFF as well? -  I dunno.) 

Neither COFF nor ELF, as I remember, have this, although one way to
assign start values to registers is to stick code to do so at the start
address - is the ability to have "exec*()" or its moral equivalent load
arbitrary values to registers useful enough that this feature is worth
having?

>So if COFF isn't that compatible anyway, why not start from scratch
>and have a clean start? 

AT&T appears to agree, hence ELF....