magic numbers? (teach me, please)

[David Morton]

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References: <124 at rexago1.UUCP> <416 at ihdev.UUCP> <3044 at sun.uucp> <9107 at ritcv.UUCP> <sun.3059>
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In article <sun.3059> guy at sun.uucp (Guy Harris) writes:
>Well, I looked on an S5 machine we have here, and there are now seven(1)
>different magic numbers in its "filehdr.h" - eight, if you count the fact
>that it claims that the UNIX PC 7300 uses the same magic number as iAPX286
>large-model code(!!!).  I don't know what the "four distinct forms of
>executables for the M68000 family" are, but I suspect there's no correlation
>between those forms and the various magic numbers.

        There are probably x (x > 8) different magic numbers on
        unix machines in the meantime. What's to stop a
        manufacturer making the kernel recognise yet another
        one (perhaps because he's developed his own mmu for some
        purpose or other), then hacking the assembler, loader & the
        includes. I know of one company here in Germany that did this.
        So much for binary compatibility.
>
>Why an "M68" is different from an "MC68K" is beyond my simple mind; maybe
>somebody from the group that did this can explain it to us mere mortals.

Yes please ! This was really confusing. Apart form that, the Motorola 5.0
SGS was nice to work with.
-- 

Dave Morton
Tel. + (49) 89 - 92699 - 139

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