I may have just found a clue in the LD Linker manual...
In part....
The Location Counter
The special linker variable dot `.' always contains the current output location counter. Since the . always refers to a location in an output section, it must always appear in an expression within a SECTIONS command. The . symbol may appear anywhere that an ordinary symbol is allowed in an expression, but its assignments have a side effect. Assigning a value to the . symbol will cause the location counter to be moved. This may be used to create holes in the output section. The location counter may never be moved backwards.
SECTIONS
{
output :
{
file1(.text)
. = . + 1000;
file2(.text)
. += 1000;
file3(.text)
} = 0x1234;
}
In the previous example, the ‘.text’ section from ‘file1’ is located at the beginning of the output section ‘output’. It is followed by a 1000 byte gap. Then the ‘.text’ section from ‘file2’ appears, also with a 1000 byte gap following before the ‘.text’ section from ‘file3’. The notation ‘= 0x12345678’ specifies what data to write in the gaps
Well, I guess that says it. If one can't place a gap in one of these "files", then it can't be easily done except MAYBE in the assembler to divide one file into two memory areas so that code execution stops in one place in memory and starts again in another area so many bytes farther up.
