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From: garyh@agora.rdrop.com (Gary Hanson)
Subject: Re: MASM, and coff, and elf, oh my!
To: fqueries@jraynard.demon.co.uk (James Raynard)
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 14:36:22 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: questions@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199608011640.QAA10800@jraynard.demon.co.uk> from "James Raynard" at Aug 1, 96 04:40:34 pm
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> >   I have a Linux app that I'd like to port to FreeBSD...Most of the
> >  work is done by routines written in Microsoft assembler.
>   
> Yuck!  Why didn't he/she just write them in GNU assembler (which is
> also available on MSDOS, BTW)?

It was originally a Win95/NT app, with the the C stuff in MSVC, I
think.

> > 2. A MASM-to-GAS translator (These exist [where?]...

> Try looking at the comp.lang.asm.x86 FAQ...

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

There is another approach; I asked the original author to try to create
a static-linked a.out version of the Linux program, but he didn't
know how to do that. While it's not fair to ask for Linux help here,
if some kind volunteer could massage his (very simple) makefile to
generate a BSD-compatible Linux executable, I'll send it back to the
original author and have him build it on his Linux system. If anyone's
willing to have a go at this, please let me know.
 
BTW, the app is George Woltman's mersenne-prime search program, and
it'd be nice to have some BSD systems using spare cycles to look for
the largest prime number in the world. :-)
 
 
  --Gary Hanson