Hi, On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 9:00 PM Alvah Whealton <awheal...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 7:40 PM Rugxulo <rugx...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 4:33 PM Alvah Whealton <awheal...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > I'm looking at TASM 5.0 for DOS and Windows, with a date of 1989. >> > I guess what I'm asking is if Assembler requires any considerations on an >> > emulator that other software does not require. >> >> But TASM 5.0 was released in 1996 (since 1.0 was 1988). >> >> (quoting the Byte Pointer website I linked above): >> >> "TASM 5.0 was exclusively a 32-bit protected mode assembler >> (TASM32.EXE) for Windows >> The distribution did however include the previous DOS assemblers >> (TASM.EXE and TASMX.EXE) and linker (TLINK.EXE) from version 4.1." > > > As you can see, I'm less than a novice at this. I don't know what the $#%!# > I'm looking at, but here is where it came from:
TASM is no longer sold nor offered for download as an individual product. Embarcadero may?? still include it in their modern C++ bundles, but it hasn't been (properly) updated since year 2000. So it's 16-bit and 32-bit OMF targets only (AFAIK, no COFF). * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ATurbo_Assembler#Current_Development (That says MMX, but I suspect it also has SSE support. I'd have to double-check.) * https://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Sydney/en/C%2B%2B_Free_Compiler * https://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Sydney/en/C%2B%2B_(Shared_Options) That first page doesn't list it, but the other page seems to imply that RADStudio "Sydney" has TASM. In any case, the freeware LZASM (Ideal mode only) is basically a rebranded TASM that does support up through SSE4. * http://web.archive.org/web/20090104203629/http://lzasm.hotbox.ru/ But you still need a linker. * https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/link/ > My confusion on dates stemmed from a Borland manual that came with the > download, > giving copyright dates of 1988 and 1996. Clearly, they did the smart thing > and in 1996 > upgraded the older 1988 manual. I did the un-smart thing and made an > assumption. Tom Swan's TASM book (2nd ed.) [used] is only $13.19, if you *really* want to learn. * https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/mastering-turbo-assembler_tom-swan/450402/item/3431410/#edition=3791690&idiq=5041542 >> Did you explicitly need TASM (Ideal) syntax support? Are you starting >> a new project or using legacy code? Normally around here we would >> recommend a different tool, e.g. NASM or FASM. (OpenWatcom's WASM >> -zcm=tasm does have partial support. For MASM v6 stuff, JWasm is a >> much better fit.) > > > In the past I have tinkered with C and with Pascal. I'm left with a desire to > tinker with Assembler "because it's there." Free Pascal supports inline assembly, even for (since 2015, ppcross8086) i8086-msdos cross-target. > I don't "need" anything. My only requirement is that it should work with > FreeDos > and that it should have some awfully good documentation available somewhere. You may also find FASM (or FASM g) interesting: plenty of docs, examples, forum posts, portable across many OSes, assembles itself!, doesn't need a linker (by default) ... but it lacks OMF support. (For that, you may prefer JWasm.) * http://flatassembler.net/docs.php * https://www.japheth.de/JWasm/Manual.html (old manual but just FYI) * https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/JWasm/releases/tag/v2.16 (latest version) There's other good references, too (at least up to 486): * https://stanislavs.org/helppc/ * http://cd.textfiles.com/simtel/simtel20/MSDOS/INFO/HELPPC21.ZIP AFAIK, this one goes up through Pentium Pro (686): * http://www.o-love.net/asmedit/ae_down.html (IDE with help info) _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
