Re: GNAT & Windows NT

[halloran@ix.netcom.com (Timothy Halloran)]

In <3h6o5j$ge8@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: 
>Robert Dewer says:
>Where did you get the idea that the current version of GNAT is only for
>the Pentium. This is nonsense, it is a 386/486/Pentium port (remember
>that these architectures are equivalent at the user level, modulo Pentium's
>well publicized incapability of guarateeing correct division results).
>
>Indeed there has been some discussion of a version that would compensate
>for the Pentium deficiencies, but we have not done anything with this yet
>(though we know how).

I can see how this mistake was made (since I made it also): the binary
file on your server (cs.nyu.edu/pub/gnat) lists the file with "586" in
the file name.

I thought that it wouldn't run on my 486 and have continued to use
the DOS version (with no tasking).

Maybe someone (GNAT developers anyone?, anyone?) could comment on the
differences between GNAT and gcc between DOS and NT.  I know that
Windows 3.1 uses the "new executable file" format for programs rather
than what is used in DOS (I don't know what Win32 programs use).  I
also suspect that GNAT under dos is generating 32-bit
executables (some sort of 32-bit extender maybe?).

Anywhere where a curious programmer can find answers to the above
questions?

So may Microsoft Operating systems,
So little time,

Tim Halloran