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Comment by ChrisSD | Hacker News Reader

I can somewhat understand having to compile for XP (it's been 20 years but... legacy, I get it). However compiling on XP must be hell.

Do you mind me asking what you do that requires this?

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Aerospace. A specific instrument requires that its code is compiled with a gcc version from the nineties. It has been working since then and introducing a new compiler would change the binary generated, thus nullifying all the accumulated flight hours.

And why windows XP? Well, the gcc binary is 16 bit...

> It has been working since then and introducing a new compiler would change the binary generated

Surely making a code change and recompiling would also change the binary?

True, I didn't mean that the entire binary is the same, but since most of the compilation units remain untouched, they are compiled to the same machine code. Fixing a bug or introducing a small new change is one thing, but compiling the entire codebase with a different compiler would change everything

I'm in the same boat here, keeping an XP-VM with NetCobol from 95 running to support COBOL reports that were ported from an HP3000 in the mid 90s. The NetCobol activation no longer works so I did a P2V conversion to make sure it doesn't die before we're COBOL free (if ever?).

Doesn't Windows 10 have a 32-bit version as well?

There are a lot of potential solutions and tbh changing my host OS didn't occur to me. I don't think I would do it though, as the current plan is to recompile the desired version with a modern gcc. It's one of those tasks that stay on the backlog though..

I think a lot of embedded stuff still orbits around XP.

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