DOS MZ executable
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Names in other languages
- Françaisformat d'exécutable DOS MZ
- EnglishDOS MZ executable
- 日本語DOS MZ実行可能ファイル
- 中文DOS MZ可执行文件
- DeutschMZ-Datei
- 한국어MZ 실행 파일
- РусскийMZ
Article bodies are English and are not machine-translated. A name in another language is not a translation of the article.
The DOS MZ executable format is the executable file format used for .EXE files under the DOS and Windows operating systems. The file can be identified by the ASCII string "MZ" (hexadecimal: 4D 5A) at the beginning of the file (the "magic number"). "MZ" are the initials of Mark Zbikowski, one of the leading developers of MS-DOS. The MZ DOS executable file is newer than the COM executable format and differs from it. The DOS executable header contains relocation information, which allows multiple segments to be loaded at arbitrary memory addresses, and it supports executables larger than ; however, the format still requires relatively low memory limits. These limits were later bypassed using DOS extenders.
The DOS MZ executable format is the executable file format used for .EXE files under the DOS and Windows operating systems. The file can be identified by the ASCII string "MZ" (hexadecimal: 4D 5A) at the beginning of the file (the "magic number"). "MZ" are the initials of Mark Zbikowski, one of the leading developers of MS-DOS. The MZ DOS executable file is newer than the COM executable format and differs from it. The DOS executable header contains relocation information, which allows multiple segments to be loaded at arbitrary memory addresses, and it supports executables larger than ; however, the format still requires relatively low memory limits. These limits were later bypassed using DOS extenders. MOV AX, @DATA MOV DS, AX PUSH DS XOR AX, AX PUSH AX Program termination would then be performed by a RETF instruction, which would retrieve the original segment address with the PSP from the stack and then jump to address 0, which contained an INT 20h instruction. The DOS 2.x API introduced a new program termination function, INT 21h Function 4Ch which does not require saving the PSP segment address at the start of the program, and Microsoft advised against the use of the older DOS 1.x method. ==Further reading== ==References==
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