Anyway; the only thing that had to be done was to compile the kernel as ELF.
This choice was marked no by default, and there was no reference as I could
find that warned against non-elfing the 1.3.11 kernel with gcc 2.7.0. I guess
Linus would save non-gurus a lot of bother by noting it in the README, or
making the option 'yes' by default.
Again; thanks to those who pointed out the error of my ways.
-- Gunnar Horrigmo Internet er et forferdelig monster.