dos2out.c -- a program to convert MS-DOS .exe files to Minix a.out
Author is unknown, possibly Will Rose? File is dated 1985.

In Minix's early days it could be compiled under MS-DOS. You would of
course have to have library source files for this. The output of 
such a compilation would still need some processing to be converted to 
a form that could be loaded and executed under Minix. This program
apprently does this.    

Michael Temari found this after someone asked about it in the newsgroup.

Here is the text of the article that accompanied the uuencoded file:

From: cwr@cts.com (Will Rose)
Subject: Re: bcc, linux, elks
Date: 11 Feb 1997 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <5dpjre$og1@bogus.cts.com>
references: <5cqes7$23m$1@news.ziplink.net> <5dn0ks$hq7@ordeal.cts.com>
<5dp0iu$rvs@alpha8.curtin.edu.au>
organization: CTS Network Services (CTSNET), San Diego, CA
newsgroups: comp.os.minix

edell@cc.curtin.edu.au wrote:

: >The first edition of Operating Systems, Design and Implementation,
: >has a fair amount of information on bootstrapping Minix, which
: >involves cross-compilation.  Minix 1.2 had assembly and makefiles
: >to build Minix under PC-IX and MSDOS, as well as Minix itself.
: >The dos2out program converted MSDOS .EXE files to Minix binaries.

: i've only been using minix since 1.7.0, so i'm pretty new to it.
: this dos2out program sounds intriguing.  is it still around,
: somewhere, and if so, where can you get your hands on it?  (as
: well as information about it, such as how it's used.  i wouldn't
: expect it to work on any old .exe file...)

A compressed and uuencoded copy of the 1.2 dos2out is below.  I can't
recall how much information 1.7 man pages have on the current a.out
file format; if you need more info, look on A S Woodhull's site for
the 1.7 disassembler front-end I wrote.  The code for that should
document things pretty fully.

For more documentation than the source provides you need 'OS: D & I'
Edition 1; Minix < 1.5 was pretty short of man pages.

The assembly files of 1.2 wouldn't be any use to you - the bootstrap
method was very different (both more limited and more complicated).

You may also be able to find information somewhere in the archives
about the work Deborah Mullen did, cross-compiling Minix 1.2 (1.3?)
with Borland Turbo-C under MSDOS.

Will
cwr@crash.cts.com

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