Re: a.out vs. ELF

[Miro Kropáček <miro.kropacek%gmail.com@localhost>]

Hi Martin,

> No support to create a.out binaries or libraries directly (why would
> you want that anyway?), but you can use objcopy to convert elf -> a.out
> (we do that for some machines where the firmware can only boot a.out
> kernels).

I've been wondering about that from purely non-NetBSD reasons. :) We
have a target, m68k-atari-mint, which is historically based on a.out
(as it's possible to create a hybrid binary which is still a native
Atari executable and a.out at the same time). (Also) due to this
reason we still haven't switched to ELF. m68k-netbsd used to be the
last officially supported target in gcc so when a bug in our a.out
code was found, there was a pretty good chance to replicate it also on
m68k-netbsd target, report it and get it fixed.

When exactly a.out was dropped in NetBSD?

Thanks,
Miro