a.out's under MacOS

[William Roberts]

In article <982 at panix.UUCP> jsb at panix.UUCP (J. S. B'ach) writes:
>From the reposnes I've gotten, I can see that a.out's won't be running
>under A/UX any time soon, but no one adressed the simpler question:
>Hypercard runs fine under A/UX.  How about having a way to run
>an a.out at the touch of a Hypercard button?  Since A/UX is already
>present, this should be possible, no?

I'm confused now, but what you should have gathered from your
responses is as follows:

1) A/UX compilers produce a.out files which run under A/UX and
   not under MacOS.
2) MPW and co produce Mac binaries that can be run under A/UX
   if they behave themselves, wipe their feet, and are invoked by
   an A/UX utility called "launch"
3) With suitable tinkering, Mac source code can be compiled
   under A/UX and still use the A/UX version of the toolbox.
   Such a.outs don't need to be "launched".


If I understand you correctly, you are asking, "Can I run
HyperCard under A/UX, and at the press of a HyperCard button,
run an A/UX a.out file?". The answer to this is, Yes but...

The "but" is that you can't with A/UX 1.1.1 or below run more
than one Mac application at once, so it should be a non-toolbox
binary (or at the very most, one that uses the NoEvents = 1;
technique to indicate that it doesn't need the Event Manager).

The other "but" is that you will need to write an XCMD (under
MacOS I suspect) which arranges to perform an A/UX system call
to fork a new A/UX process. There are some notes on how to do
this in the A/UX Toolbox Manual, but essentiallyu it amounts to
writing a C program under A/UX, using dis to get the 68000
assembler, converting the A/UX assembler mnemonics into MPW
assembler mnemonics, then compiling the appropriate bits as
routines linked into your XCMD.

Best of luck!
-- 

William Roberts                 ARPA: liam at cs.qmw.ac.uk
Queen Mary & Westfield College  UUCP: liam at qmw-cs.UUCP
Mile End Road                   AppleLink: UK0087
LONDON, E1 4NS, UK              Tel:  01-975 5250 (Fax: 01-980 6533)