As NOP is not a branch, I would not expect NOP to be converted by IEABRC. It is true that NOP has an address operand. If NOP is executed using EX with a suitable mask in the register it can be used for execution purposes, although this is rather obscure.
However, as the address operand is not normally used for a branch, it might not work to convert it to relative. For example, I have seen code which uses NOP 1, NOP 2 etc. as markers for debugging purposes, which would definitely cause problems if changed to relative addressing. Jonathan Scott, HLASM IBM Hursley, UK
