Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 13, 2026

EMX (programming environment)

EMX is a programming environment for MS-DOS and OS/2. It allows creating and executing of 32-bit mode applications, presenting a POSIX API and, on OS/2, access to the OS/2 APIs.

Last revised
Jul 13, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
Length
244 w
Citations
2
Source
Eberhard Mattes eXtender (EMX)
Other namesemx+gcc
Original authorEberhard Mattes
Stable release
emx 0.9d / 1998 (1998)
Written inC, Assembly language
Operating systemMS-DOS, OS/2
TypeProgramming environment
LicenseGPL-2.0-or-later
Websitesourceforge.net/projects/emx/

EMX (Eberhard Mattes eXtender; also known as emx+gcc) is a programming environment for MS-DOS and OS/2.12 It allows creating and executing of 32-bit mode applications, presenting a POSIX API and, on OS/2, access to the OS/2 APIs.

Contents

The EMX package consists of:

  • The emx.exe program, a DOS extender, that allows running a 32-bit mode application and emx.dll and helper dlls in single threaded (for MS-DOS compatibility) and multithreaded forms for running under OS/2.
  • A C library that provides a POSIX API, for use on both DOS and OS/2.
  • Additional libraries for OS/2.
  • Ports of the C and C++ compilers of GNU GCC, the GNU binutils, gdb, GNU make, and other tools for program development.
  • Tools for creating OS/2 shared libraries.

History

The latest version is emx 0.9d, released in 1998 and last updated in March 2001.

See also

See also

References

References

  1. J. Martin and H. A. Muller, "C to Java migration experiences," Software Maintenance and Reengineering, 2002. Proceedings. Sixth European Conference on, Budapest, 2002, pp. 143-153. doi: 10.1109/CSMR.2002.995799 online
  2. Eric S. Raymond (23 September 2003). The Art of UNIX Programming. Addison-Wesley Professional. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-13-246588-5. In the early 1990s, developers in the OS/2 community began to migrate to a Unix-inspired environment called EMX that emulated POSIX interfaces.
External links