Gnu Assembler Ported

I have now managed to port the Gnu Assembler, as, to IanOS. I consider this a major achievement as it shows that the system is capable of running real, useful programs. The next step will be to port the linker, ld, at which point the OS can be considered to be self-hosting. But true independence will call for a port of GCC also. Having managed to port as, I think this is a real possibility. At that stage it should be possible for the system to compile itself (and then it will be time to look at getting it running on real hardware).

Apart from being a very useful step in its own right, this task has been extremely useful in ferreting out various bugs, particularly in the filesystem task. Whatever tests one runs the real trial is when you apply these routines in earnest. I’ve uploaded all the changes to the OS to GitHub and at some stage I’ll document the procedures necessary for these ports; but I’m too keen to press on to devote much time to that right now.

And it’s a nice sunny day, with the Monaco Grand Prix on TV soon. Perfect!