The binary compatibility standard

An overview is presented of the binary compatibility standard (BCS) for the Motorola M88000 family. This standard has defined the interface between the operating system kernel and the binary executable application. Specifically, the BCS describes the data types, common object file format, the memory map, entry into the user process, signal handling, common header file values, system calls. and required files and installation procedures. The result is a detailed standard that can be used by systems and applications developers to separately develop systems and applications that will run together without further modifications. In addition, when developing software packages, application vendors will no longer have to develop several versions of the same package because the same version will run on a wide range of systems. In turn, system vendors will be able to provide their users with a large library of applications.<
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