diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index 80ab592..15a7e6d 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -98,8 +98,11 @@ corrections:
 	feature (thanks to Pavan Gadi for reporting this bug)
 
 porting:
-	socat should now build under MacOS X 10.4 (thanks to Camillo Lugaresi for
-	providing the patch)
+	socat should now build under MacOS X 10.4 (thanks to Camillo Lugaresi
+	for providing the patch)
+
+	socat compiles and runs on AIX (thanks to Andi Mather for testing and
+	patching)
 
 further changes:
 	filan -s prefixes output with FD number if more than one FD
diff --git a/README b/README
index d92eb4a..6bf0463 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -45,11 +45,11 @@ distributions.
 platforms
 ---------
 
-socat 1.6.0 was compiled and more or less successfully tested under the
+socat 1.7.0 was compiled and more or less successfully tested under the
 following operating systems:
 
 SuSE Linux 10.1 on x86
-AIX 5.2 on PPC with gcc
+AIX 5.3 on PPC with gcc
 Solaris 9 on Sparc with gcc
 FreeBSD 6.1 on x86
 HP-UX B 11.11 on PA-RISC with gcc
diff --git a/xio-ip4.c b/xio-ip4.c
index d40796b..076ce1f 100644
--- a/xio-ip4.c
+++ b/xio-ip4.c
@@ -32,9 +32,10 @@ int xioparsenetwork_ip4(const char *rangename, struct xiorange *range) {
       netmask_in->s_addr = htonl((0xffffffff << (32-bits)));
    } else if (delimpos = strchr(rangename1, ':')) {
       if ((maskaddr = Gethostbyname(delimpos+1)) == NULL) {
+	 /* note: cast is req on AIX: */
 	 Error2("gethostbyname(\"%s\"): %s", delimpos+1,
 		h_errno == NETDB_INTERNAL ? strerror(errno) :
-		hstrerror(h_errno));
+		(char *)hstrerror(h_errno));
 	 return STAT_NORETRY;
       }
       netmask_in->s_addr = *(uint32_t *)maskaddr->h_addr_list[0];
@@ -47,9 +48,10 @@ int xioparsenetwork_ip4(const char *rangename, struct xiorange *range) {
       struct hostent *nameaddr;
       *delimpos = 0;
       if ((nameaddr = Gethostbyname(rangename1)) == NULL) {
+	 /* note: cast is req on AIX: */
 	 Error2("gethostbyname(\"%s\"): %s", rangename1,
 		h_errno == NETDB_INTERNAL ? strerror(errno) :
-		hstrerror(h_errno));
+		(char *)hstrerror(h_errno));
 	    free(rangename1);
 	 return STAT_NORETRY;
       }
diff --git a/xio-proxy.c b/xio-proxy.c
index 984933c..622e2c5 100644
--- a/xio-proxy.c
+++ b/xio-proxy.c
@@ -244,9 +244,11 @@ int _xioopen_proxy_prepare(struct proxyvars *proxyvars, struct opt *opts,
       host = Gethostbyname(targetname);
       if (host == NULL) {
 	 int level = E_WARN;
+	 /* note: cast is req on AIX: */
 	 Msg2(level, "gethostbyname(\"%s\"): %s", targetname,
-	       h_errno == NETDB_INTERNAL ? strerror(errno) :
-	       hstrerror(h_errno)/*0 h_messages[h_errno-1]*/);
+	      h_errno == NETDB_INTERNAL ? strerror(errno) :
+	      (char *)hstrerror(h_errno)/*0 h_messages[h_errno-1]*/);
+
 	 proxyvars->targetaddr = strdup(targetname);
       } else {
 #define LEN 16	/* www.xxx.yyy.zzz\0 */