8.3.-build fails due parse error in VERSION script

#make
<skip>
make[3]: Entering directory
`/opt_noraid/src/postgresql-8.3.0/src/interfaces/libpq'
echo '{ global:' >exports.list
gawk '/^[^#]/ {printf "%s;\n",$1}' exports.txt >>exports.list
echo ' local: *; };' >>exports.list
gcc -O2 -Wall -Wmissing-prototypes -Wpointer-arith -Winline
-fno-strict-aliasing -fpic -shared -Wl,-soname,libpq.so.5
-Wl,--version-script=exports.list fe-auth.o fe-connect.o fe-exec.o
fe-misc.o fe-print.o fe-lobj.o fe-protocol2.o fe-protocol3.o
pqexpbuffer.o pqsignal.o fe-secure.o md5.o ip.o wchar.o encnames.o
noblock.o pgstrcasecmp.o thread.o strlcpy.o -L../../../src/port
-L/usr/local/lib -lssl -lcrypto -lcrypt
-Wl,-rpath,'/usr/local/pgsql8.3/lib' -o libpq.so.5.1
/usr/bin/ld:exports.list:1: parse error in VERSION script
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[3]: *** [libpq.so.5.1] Error 1

The machine is a very old machine, that uses GNU ld 2.11.90.0.8 but it
was able to compile and run postgres8.0.13 without any troubles.

And I dont want to upgrade binutils (and probably the whole server)
until I have to.

The problem is probably with the format of exports.list. In 8.3.0 a
file exports.list is created by the make-process with a gawk-command out
of exports.txt if it does not exist yet (see output of my make-command
above) and this exports.list then makes the troubles.

In 8.0.13 there is only exports.txt and no exports.list and during make
no exports.list is created.

To me it seems that exports.list is kind of new format of exports.txt
(if you compare the two files: same content in different format) and I
wonder if I can tell 8.3.0 to use the old exports.txt-file/format
instead of new exports.list.

I found a similar problem in the pgsql-hacker-list with 8.2beta2 at
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2006-10/msg01507.php
and Tom Lane suggested in a follow-up, that there could be a strip-down
in postgres-requirements on exports.list.

thnx,
peter