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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!udel!newsserv.cs.sunysb.edu!home.stark.cs.sunysb.EDU!stark!stark!gene From: stark!gene@newsserv.cs.sunysb.edu (Gene Stark) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: PDP-11 Executable? Date: 7 Mar 94 07:42:28 Organization: Gene Stark's home system Lines: 12 Message-ID: <STARK!GENE.94Mar7074228@stark.uucp> References: <2ldnu7$8v1@news.ysu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: home.stark.cs.sunysb.edu In-reply-to: ap713@yfn.ysu.edu's message of 6 Mar 1994 23:11:03 GMT In article <2ldnu7$8v1@news.ysu.edu> ap713@yfn.ysu.edu (Christopher L. Mikkelson) writes: > Just out of curiosity, is there any reason that a .o file (Under FreeBSD) > looks like a PDP-11 Executable to 'file'? Because the first 16 bits of the file are octal 0407, which was the original magic number for PDP-11 executables. It also happens to be a PDP-11 branch instruction, whose purpose was to jump around the header information and begin execution at the "real" beginning of the program. - Gene Stark --