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From: JW-Peterson@UTAH-20.ARPA (John W Peterson)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.apollo
Subject: Re: /usr/include/a.out.h missing in SR9
Message-ID: <12161193854.7.JW-PETERSON@UTAH-20.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 22-Nov-85 01:33:02 EST
Article-I.D.: UTAH-20.12161193854.7.JW-PETERSON
Posted: Fri Nov 22 01:33:02 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 26-Nov-85 08:19:03 EST
References: <501465980-9475-ekrell@NEPTUNE.LOCUS.UCLA.EDU>
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Organization: The ARPA Internet
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Approved: apollo@yale-comix.arpa

The fact that a.out.h is missing is intentional.  Because the Apollo doesn't
use the wretched Bell labs/PCC compiler, the internal format of binary
and library files is completly different.  The linker (what Apollo calls
the binder) is also much different, for example you can't use "ar" to build
subroutine libraries.

If the program you're porting depends extensivly on the binary file format
(and hence a.out.h) you may simply be out of luck (though I've heard rumors
of a compatibilty kludge for SRn+i).  However, in several cases of porting
code here I've been able to work around it by no-op'ing out whatever feature
needed to look at a.out.h (e.g., things that dig in /dev/kmem to find
load averages and so forth).

[Personally, I would never trade the Apollo's C compiler for PCC compatibility.
It runs 2-3 times faster than PCC, produces much better diagnostics,
and has better debugging facilities...]
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