jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA (08/26/88)
Yes, I think it IS John Dunning who is hoping to "whomp up" a relocatable format and linking loader. In my opinion, it is PRECISELY BECAUSE the 6502 has very poor support for relocatability that a relocatable object code format and a linking, relocating loader ARE NEEDED. With such facilities, code can be relocated to the absolute load addresses during the linkage process, all under the automatic control of the linker. Linking will require a little computation, and the relocatable format will be a little more "bulky" than the final, absolute load modules that result. However, once such machinery is in hand, it will become practical to build REAL languages for the 8-bitters. Heck, even a version of ACTION! with the capability of building relocatable object libraries would be a terrific advance! For that matter, relocatable assembly language libraries would be pretty neat too. I'd be interested in reading a "product review" of ICD's format. -John Sangster / jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa
jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA (08/27/88)
Thanks to Wayne Wilcox for reminding me about Six Forks, which sells an assembler with relocatable object format output and a linking loader to go with it. Sorry I couldn't reply directly, Wayne, as the return address my mailer figured out resulted in an "unknown host" mailer error message. Anyway, others may want to know about Six Forks, and I want to know if their assembler now supports macros, which as I recall the original release did not. Anybody know about this? -John Sangster / jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa
jrd@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM (John R. Dunning) (08/28/88)
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 88 22:30:49 EDT
From: jhs@mitre-bedford.ARPA
Yes, I think it IS John Dunning who is hoping to "whomp up" a relocatable
format and linking loader.
Yup, that's me. I've heard of other relocatable object formats, but
have never succeeded in getting hold of specs on any of them, and don't
know of anyone else who claims to be working on them.
In my opinion, it is PRECISELY BECAUSE the 6502 has very poor support for
relocatability that a relocatable object code format and a linking, relocating
loader ARE NEEDED.
Precisely. If it was easy to get that functionality, nobody would be
worried about it.
With such facilities, code can be relocated to the absolute load addresses
during the linkage process, all under the automatic control of the linker.
Linking will require a little computation, and the relocatable format will be
a little more "bulky" than the final, absolute load modules that result.
However, once such machinery is in hand, it will become practical to build
REAL languages for the 8-bitters.
Yup, that's my thinking exactly.
Heck, even a version of ACTION! with the
capability of building relocatable object libraries would be a terrific
advance! For that matter, relocatable assembly language libraries would be
pretty neat too.
Yup. In other mail I mentioned my plan to build a linker for the object
format I'm working on. The obvious extension is to arrange it so that
it can extract modules from libraries, and I've left room in my format
definitions for that sort of thing.
I'd be interested in reading a "product review" of ICD's format.
Me too.