What is ia16-unknown-elks-gcc

It is a GCC compiler with a back end for the intel 8086 family (16 bit
x86). The backend was written for GCC version 4.3.0 by Rask Ingemann
Lambertsen. A set of patches were posted by him on 30 July 2007 at
[email protected]. After some discussion, a conclusion was
reached that this should not be a new backend, but a variant of the
i386 family. Rask disliked this conclusion and on 30 August 2007
announced he will not continue with this work and posted a second set
of patches.

Compared with other compilers for the 8086, ia16-unknown-elks-gcc
(ia16-gcc) features:

  -Is unmantained, sharing this feature with all other compilers for these
   processors.
  -In common with BCC, knows nothing about segmentation of memory.
  -Being the most recent compiler for these processors, it probably
produces the best code.
  -This is also the least tested compiler. There is no information
regarding the reliability of the produced code.

The easiest way to get ia16-gcc is at the following links:

   <https://github.com/crtc-demos/gcc-ia16>    The ia16-gcc proper
   <https://github.com/crtc-demos/newlib-ia16> The newlib library,
adapted for ia16-gcc
   <https://github.com/crtc-demos/build-ia16>  A shell script to build the thing

I found the above links after getting the compiler by other means. So,
I can't say anything about how well it works.

To use ia16-gcc, you need to have installed the toolchain for x86.
That is, gas, ld, ar, etc. provides support for 16 bit 8086.

Juan