Hi again, On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 3:48 PM, Steve Nickolas <lyricalnan...@usotsuki.hoshinet.org> wrote: > >>> Exe2bin: Not all software uses compilers which create COM directly. > > PC DOS 2000 doesn't even *have* exe2bin.
I'm not sure about MS-DOS 6.22 since I can't find an online listing. (I used to know a site, but alas ....) Anyways, EXE2BIN *may* have been moved to the 6.22 Supplemental add-on or even Step-up add-on, not sure. But it seems MS-DOS 5 did have it by default: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/75712 On a semi-related note, I don't think LINK was included after MS-DOS 4. (It's still on MS' FTP, but it's now a 386 PharLap .EXE, which is vaguely weird for a 16-bit only OMF linker. I don't know their licensing and IIRC it "seems" to be only a "upgrade for MS VC 1.52 users", so it's probably "only" for them. Meh.) In short, I don't think EXE2BIN belongs in "BASE" for FreeDOS. I don't know of anybody using it. Okay, since Eric mentions it, I can vaguely remember that thinks like MASM did need it, but since we don't include MASM, why do we include EXE2BIN?? We don't include a linker either (as mentioned). So any alleged programmers would still have to add those to their toolset too. A quick check at EXE2BIN included with FreeDOS shows that it's basically just verbatim OpenWatcom 1.5 [sic] EXE2BIN except apparently recompiled with Borland / Turbo C, perhaps for smaller size?? (Latest OW 1.9 is an .EXE of approx. 20 kb, while this one once decompressed [UPX] is like a 13 kb .COM.) The "Software List" says "ramax" is the author / maintainer, but considering all the *heavy* mentions of OpenWatcom in the sources and the fact that the help screen is "almost" identical (at least feature parity) makes me doubt that. In fact, you may find it funny (!) to know that the LICENSE.TXT is bigger than the program!! I know it's not important to mention this. I also know nobody will agree with me, most likely. I'm just saying, seriously, do we need it?? I'm not saying "throw it out completely", just get it from OpenWatcom if you really need it (since it's the same!!). Besides, 1.9 > 1.5, so nyah. ;-) The tool basically only strips the .EXE header but *also* resolves any relocs. So I guess it *could* be useful to someone, but *by itself* it's fairly useless (and redundant) in "BASE". So there, is that an exhaustive enough analysis? :-/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Magic Quadrant for Content-Aware Data Loss Prevention Research study explores the data loss prevention market. Includes in-depth analysis on the changes within the DLP market, and the criteria used to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these DLP solutions. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51385063/ _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
