For version 0.0.9.

> The debian stuff has been removed again, Christoph want's to keep contol
  of the debian specific files.

> I've done some changes to the makefiles, it'll now honour CC=XXX on the
  make command line.

> The assembler now works again compiled under bcc, it tried to allocate
  too much memory.

> Major change to the assembler, '-j' not auto-sizes jumps this requires
  a change to at least 3 passes. Sometimes it'll say it needs another -j
  because lengthing jumps cause others to fail, two -j's will give it lots
  of passes :-)

> The second large change is an effort to identify when instructions are
  not right for a specific processor and generate a warning. The use16
  and use32 instructions now have an optional argument of a processor
  type (86,186..686). Also bcc has a '-W' to remove the -w it passes to
  the assembler.

> Altered the way bcc deals with LOCALPREFIX, now under DOS it picks this
  up based on the path to the executable.

> Fixed a bug introduced by the 'cpp in asm' change in 0.0.8, bcc-cc1 
  wasn't compiling under bcc.

> Two new bootblocks in the 'examples' mbr.s is an MBR (no really :-))
  msdos.s is unfinished but even this far allows lilo to be used on an
  MSDOS filesystem floppy.

> Changed ld to _check_ the magic on files inside an archive, this cures
  the problem caused by long names inserted by gnu-ar. Also it notices
  if an archive has been included in an archive and will link that too.

> Changed ld to do a final check that it knows what sort of a.out.h file
  it's got, if this fails '-N' is disabled.

> Ld changed so for 16 bit exes the heap is limited to 32k.

> getcwd and execvp added, sash should now work. Also added to the 386-lib
  except execvp won't run scripts without '#!'

> Nasty bug with syscalls of > 3 args in 386 code fixed, none of them would
  have been working correctly.

For version 0.0.8.

> Christoph Lameter <clameter@debian.org> has provided a patch for
  installation using the debian packaging, I've probably broken it :-)

> Doselks has been added in, it's not that big really.

> Triggered by the debian stuff the makefiles can now create a pure
  binary installation tree, nothing needed in /usr/src. If kinclude is
  configured out the include directory will reference /usr/src/linuxmt

> Some good changes to the linker today, it will generate a Linux-386
  (That's right, growed up linux) executable. It's still very fragile
  but it does work. The '-r' option now works, but unlike bin86-0.3
  it creates a _Linux_ OMAGIC file. This means that bcc -G works, the
  names are mangled by ld86 such that if it was compiled with ELF the
  OMAGIC will successfully link in an ELF environment.  Beware older
  versions of GCC-binutils can segfault in this situation.

> Bit of sneakyness for the assembler, org will accept negative values ...

> Made a few changes to idcc, I think I'll translate it to C soon.

> Fixed a couple of problems with the preprocessor WRT hashes not at the
  start of a line and quotes in ifdef'd out code.

> Missed a bet in the kernel patch and module, the old one wouldn't
  execute impure executables it will now.

> Fixed matching bug in elksemu, A piece of code was commented out for
  some reason ... oops.

> Some of the error reporting in the linker has improved, if it can't
  open libc it now says so!

> Some 386 specific stuff has been added to libc, mainly the syscall
  generator, startup stuff and BCC's 386 floating point code.

> Change in malloc, Linux-386 limits +ve brk() changes to 32Mb, the malloc
  will now allow for this ...  Phew! grab.c will grab about 3Gb of virtual
  memory, with 1Gb chunks, when compiled in 386 mode! One oddity, glibc
  (quite an old one) hangs when trying to free if grab.c is compiled static.

> Hunted down the most important 16 bit dependancies in dis88, it seems to
  generate a reasonable output file now. Plus a couple of fiddles in the
  disassembler, personally I prefer Hex and I've added a couple of markers
  for 386 code (use opr32, use adr32, seg fs/gs) and the -f flag to force
  disassembly of any file.

> The i386 compile uncovered a bug in alloca, In fact the move to 386 has
  been amazingly painless, practically everything so far has worked first
  time or nearly so ... Wow!

> Added minimal dirent to i386-lib, elksemu now compiles under BCC-386
  AND WORKS!

> Trying to compile bash, it does some hackish stuff with the preprocessor
  and uncovered a couple of problems, fixed. Now I need more float stuff.

> Added for bcc-cc1, code between #asm and #endasm _is_ scanned for #defined
  words and functions, it didn't effect the libc at all. Of course we now
  need some way to put multiple instructions in one #define, I've nominated
  '^' as the statment terminator, I didn't have many choices :-(

> Added '-t' for bcc-cc1 when bcc gets -S

-Rob

For version 0.0.7.

I've been making quite a few changes to the assembler:
   The 'include' or 'get' command now works.
   The '-b' and '-s' options are now quite useful for bootblocks
      or encapsulated code.
   The standard input is now a valid source for the assemble
      (but only on 'big' machines).
   Various other functions now work, macros, 'jmp near',
      'jmpi qword $100000,$1000', and other bug fixes.
   As86_encap script added.
   Some of the 256 char line limits have been removed for non-bcc compiles.

The linker will now fail more gracefully for reversed 'org's and complain
about too large segments.

Bcc-cc1 will now compile under itself, with some limitations, and appears
to generate correct output.  There are problems tho in that I think the
heap<->stack saftey margin is too short and I've disconnected all code for
floating point features.

The components will all compile and seem to work quite well using MSC 5.1
under dos and will probably compile using other dos compilers. BCC cannot
compile itself under dos because the libs to fake the unix syscalls under
dos are currently too large.

A number of fixes have been added that were apperently in another version
of the tools to aid operation on other machines, there's now a better chance
of these programs working on 'big-endian' machines.

Various bits and pieces have been added to the libs, including some time
functions (but these need a _small_ way of dealing with "DST").

-Rob
