1. Introduction
Cygnus Solutions was founded in 1989 to provide commercial support
and development services for the GNU development tools, focusing on
the embedded computing industry. The tools include the GNU C/C++
compiler (GCC/G++), assembler (GAS), linker (GLD), and debugger (GDB).
As of June 1998, Cygnus sells support for over 150 host/target
combinations.
When the Free Software Foundation (FSF) first wrote the GNU tools
in the mid-1980s, portability among existing and future UNIX operating
systems was an important goal. By mid-1995, the tools had been ported
to 16-bit DOS using the go32 32-bit extender by DJ Delorie.
However, no one had completed a native 32-bit
port for Windows NT and 95/98. It seemed likely that the demand for
Win32-hosted native and cross-development tools would soon be large
enough to justify the development costs involved.
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