Dear alt.folklore.computers,
Earlier this evening I had a very nice dinner with a book by John
Levine, and enjoyed both immensely.-a Here is a link to a picture on
a different social media site, as alt.folklore.computers is somewhat
old fashioned, and restricts posts to A.S.C.I.I. most of the time, and Unicode some of the time.
-a https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social/post/3mw4rleu5uc2g
I did not try my hand at rendering this photo into A.S.C.I.I. art.-a Do
you think A.A. lib would do it justice?
Best wishes, and happy reading of /Flex & Bison/ by John Levine!
I try not to be too much off topic, and I hope computer folklore from
the 1980s is not too recent to consider on topic in alt.folklore.com-
puters.
Alas, this is an example of my tsundoku, so I will not be programming my
own C.O.F.F. file processor in the near future.-a I am able to read the
book and answer questions, if any.-a I chose not to cross post to comp. compilers, because this is something that should be handled by the ass- embler.-a If you need a reference on how to write your own, please direct yourself to the following website, and be illuminated.
-a https://www.davidsalomon.name/assem.advertis/AssemAd.html
There you can download the P.D.F., which is not immediately obvious if
you just glance at the text like an L.L.M.
I just acquired /Understanding and Using COFF/, a great companion to
John's /Linkers & Loaders/. I would hope some of the alt.folklore.com- >puters regulars would be interested, so here's a picture.
https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social/post/3mwb3zgs7h226
The book is written by Gintaras R. Gircys, and explains the intricacies
of this brand new System V file format, first published according to Wi- >kipedia in 1983. The book came out later, or in 1988.
According to Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid>:
I just acquired /Understanding and Using COFF/, a great companion to
John's /Linkers & Loaders/. I would hope some of the alt.folklore.com-
puters regulars would be interested, so here's a picture.
https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social/post/3mwb3zgs7h226
The book is written by Gintaras R. Gircys, and explains the intricacies
of this brand new System V file format, first published according to Wi-
kipedia in 1983. The book came out later, or in 1988.
Man, there's a blast from the past. COFF turned out to be inadequate
for the job so SVR4 moved to ELF, same idea but better specified and
more complete. But in the meantime Microsoft used a mutant version
of COFF for their executables and if you look at a current Windows
PE file, you'll find some very COFF-ish bits.
All is not lost in the world of elves, because the dwarfs have not yet decided what bit pattern represents the programming language /Common
Lisp/.-a When I last looked into it, it seemed strange to me, but then
the Lisp world has a strange habit of simply /ignoring/ everything in
the Unix world.-a As if the Unix vs. Lisp flame war was still ongoing,
and cease fire of nineteen hundred and ninety-four never happened.
On 9/24/26 14:39, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
Was there once an OS written in Lisp?
All is not lost in the world of elves, because the dwarfs have not yet
decided what bit pattern represents the programming language /Common
Lisp/.-a When I last looked into it, it seemed strange to me, but then
the Lisp world has a strange habit of simply /ignoring/ everything in
the Unix world.-a As if the Unix vs. Lisp flame war was still ongoing,
and cease fire of nineteen hundred and ninety-four never happened.
On 9/25/2026 3:22 AM, John Levine wrote:
According to Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson-a <johann@myrkraverk.invalid>: >>> I just acquired /Understanding and Using COFF/, a great companion to
John's /Linkers & Loaders/.-a I would hope some of the alt.folklore.com- >>> puters regulars would be interested, so here's a picture.
-a-a https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social/post/3mwb3zgs7h226
The book is written by Gintaras R. Gircys, and explains the intricacies
of this brand new System V file format, first published according to Wi- >>> kipedia in 1983.-a The book came out later, or in 1988.
Man, there's a blast from the past.-a COFF turned out to be inadequate
for the job so SVR4 moved to ELF, same idea but better specified and
more complete.-a But in the meantime Microsoft used a mutant version
of COFF for their executables and if you look at a current Windows
PE file, you'll find some very COFF-ish bits.
All is not lost in the world of elves, because the dwarfs have not yet decided what bit pattern represents the programming language /Common
Lisp/.-a When I last looked into it, it seemed strange to me, but then
the Lisp world has a strange habit of simply /ignoring/ everything in
the Unix world.-a As if the Unix vs. Lisp flame war was still ongoing,
and cease fire of nineteen hundred and ninety-four never happened.
That year saw also the first edition of Christian Queinnec's /Prin-
cipes d'Implantation de Scheme et Lisp/.-a It was also the year of
Heretic -- not the Horus Heresy I believe -- and the outbreak of fights
in Tekken.-a It saw the last release of Microsoft's MS-DOS 6.22, and the
Sony PlayStation I.-a The latter under influence by the great S.G.I., had
a S.P.I.M. compatible core [1], yet Intel released its second generation Pentium.
Some people say the world has never been the same since, and I believe
that to be true.
Best wishes, and thank you for stopping by my monologue in alt.folklore. computers!
[1] We don't mention the trademark, they do RISC-V now.
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