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To: john DOT kismul AT bergen DOT mail DOT telia DOT com, djgpp AT delorie DOT com
From: Nate Eldredge <nate AT cartsys DOT com>
Subject: Re: Pure binary output with GCC
Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 18:14:47 -0700
Message-ID: <19980513011428.AAH27360@ppp118.cartsys.com>
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At 05:48  5/12/1998 +0200, John Kismul wrote:
>Is it possible to make GCC output pure binary files just like NASM does?

It depends on what you mean by "pure binary file". You can create an
executable and then do

objcopy --output-format=binary a.out a.bin

But I have no idea what that file format means, except that it doesn't seem
to have any headers in particular. If you want a COM file, no, I don't think
DJGPP can create one.

However, DJ Delorie has made a 16-bit port of GCC that I believe can create
COM files. You might take a look at it on www.delorie.com.

Nate Eldredge
nate AT cartsys DOT com



icularly slow either.
Besides, think about it. The BIOS is not magic; it has to change the pallete
by exactly the same way you do it (unless the graphics card has weird
features). So the time to do the actual operation is constant, but the BIOS
call adds the many dozens/hundreds of cycles of overhead caused by the mode
switches. As far as I can tell, it is physically impossible for the BIOS to
be faster, and the amount by which it is slower is probably significant.

That said, the only true answer is to benchmark both methods and see. :)

Nate Eldredge
nate AT cartsys DOT com