MasmBasic

[BytePtr]

Got this error: "Sorry, MasmBasic needs SSE2."


Too bad. Im not going to buy new PC because of MasmBasic.

Sad, i thought i could use it. But it seems, i must forget it.

[TmX]

Got this error: "Sorry, MasmBasic needs SSE2."


Too bad. Im not going to buy new PC because of MasmBasic.

Sad, i thought i could use it. But it seems, i must forget it.

Are you using an old CPU, prior to Pentium 4?

[jj2007]

Got this error: "Sorry, MasmBasic needs SSE2."
Too bad. Im not going to buy new PC because of MasmBasic.

Sorry for that. SSE2 was introduced ten years ago...

I actually wrote MasmBasic to overcome the limitations of an old 16-bit Basic dialect that I still use frequently; so MB is not meant to support old hardware.

There are actually people who claim that 32-bit assembler is obsolete now. Given that 16-bit Windows apps still work fine on the latest Win7 64-bit professional editions, and that the added value of going from 16 to 32 bits was much, much higher than the step from 32 to 64, I am optimistic that a 32-bit SSE2 language will be useful for some decades to come :bg

[BytePtr]

Are you using an old CPU, prior to Pentium 4?

AMD Duron, 1.6 GHz.

Of course i would like to have new and more powerful PC, with tons of RAM and video memory and very fast HDD.

But i don't play any high end games, (what i play only is: GTA1, GTA2, GTA3, Vice and San), that's all, and they all work perfectly on my PC), i can watch my movies with my current PC fine, i can make my all development on this PC fine.

Basically im just wasting my money with buying new PC or making new from different new pieces. Because i will never use that power.

And i didn't know that AMD Duron doesn't support SSE2, i thought it does.

jj2007, no problems, if i find some good offers or something like that, i will of course upgrade.
I can sell old parts, add some money and make new PC from pieces (best available in my town PC shops).

And i can test MasmBasic again.

[qWord]

i can watch my movies with my current PC fine

just for interest: also HD films?

[BytePtr]

Nope, i don't care much about that, HD or not, i will watch movie once and that's enough, if i see the action, that's all i need.
Of course preferably better quality than Youtube offers for example. Not their HD but these, 640x480, etc resolutions in fullscreen.


But about MasmBasic, when i first saw this topic, i thought: wow, finally, compiler that makes programming with assembler alot easier.
But it's actually INC file.

But that's not the problem, i looked into manual and .INC file, looks very interesting and useful.
Hopefully i can soon test it.


Keep up the good work, JJ2007.

[dedndave]

the AMD Duron supports SSE (1)
maybe you can get some functionality - or at least, see how it works - to help you in writing your own code

on the other hand, maybe Jochen can work in some non-SSE fallbacks   :P

[jj2007]

Keep up the good work, JJ2007.

Thanks :bg

Update 23 May 2011 (below top of thread):

1. Interface to GNU Scientific Library (see this thread)
  Note this does NOT imply that MasmBasic gets a GNU licence. You can use the GSL as you like, but MasmBasic source code remains copyrighted and closed source - so make sure you understand the implications of using an external library with a GNU license.

2. CreateInvoke - a quick way to use invoke for dynamically linked routines:

include \masm32\MasmBasic\MasmBasic.inc
   Init
[/color]   mov ebx, rv(LoadLibrary, Chr$("urlmon"))
   mov CreateInvoke(Web2File, 5*DWORD), rv(GetProcAddress, ebx, Chr$("URLDownloadToFileA"))
   invoke Web2File, 0, Chr$("http://www.masm32.com/board/index.php?action=unread", 59, "all"), Chr$("NewReplies.htm"), 0, 0
   invoke FreeLibrary, ebx
   Inkey Str$("\nCongrats, the file has %i bytes. See it now?\n", Lof("NewReplies.htm"))
   .if al=="y"
      Inkey FileRead$("NewReplies.htm")
   .endif
   Exit
end start

Variants:
   mov CreateInvoke(zebox1, 4*dword), MessageBox
   invoke zebox1, 0, Chr$("Text"), Chr$("Title"), MB_OK
   mov CreateInvoke(zebox2, dword, :Dword, dWord, :DWORD), MessageBox
   invoke zebox2, 0, Chr$("Text"), Chr$("Title"), MB_OK

[jj2007]

The version of 23 May had a bug in its implementation of gsl - it used STDCALL instead of C.
The good news is that fixing the bug required adding a "C" variant of CreateInvoke:

include \masm32\MasmBasic\MasmBasic.inc   ; Download
   Init

;   whateverproc = any proc or result of GetProcAddress etc
   mov CreateInvoke(whatever1, 3*dword, REAL8), whateverproc
;   mov CreateInvoke(whatever2, vararg), whateverproc   ; Error A2094: Vararg requires C calling convention
   mov CreateInvokeC(whatever3, dword, REAL8, dword, REAL4), whateverproc
   mov CreateInvokeC(whatever4, vararg), whateverproc

;   example how to use the created invoke:
   invoke whatever3, 123, FP8(123.456), 456, FP4(456.789)
   Inkey "OK"
   Exit

whateverproc proc  thedd1, thereal8:REAL8, thedd2, thereal4:REAL4
   PrintLine "Ciao"  ; could do something more useful, actually :wink
   ret
whateverproc endp

end start

Download is here as usual.

[jj2007]

Update 14 June 2011 (archive):

- CatchRTE:
MasmBasic can throw a variety of runtime errors, such as "file not found" etc. ; note that
after showing them, MB will call ExitProcess. This can lead to tricky situations if you use
MB in a dll. To prevent killing your main process, use MbCatchRTE as follows:
   MyAlgo proc uses esi edi ebx arg1, arg2
   LOCAL var1, var2
            MbCatchRTE SafeRet   ; any label will do
            ... code that may trigger a runtime error...
   SafeRet:   ret      ; will gracefully return, with pop ebx edi esi and retn 2*4
   MyAlgo endp

- Erase works now also for numeric arrays.

[jj2007]

Update 17 June:
1. minor Str$() change - this is now legal syntax:

Code Select Expand

.code
MyR8 REAL8 123.456
start: mov esi, offset MyR8
Print Str$("Wow, a Real whatever: %f\n", REAL8 PTR [esi])


2. Print #1:numbytes, ptrBuffer could misbehave for large buffers because it HeapAlloc's a buffer for the buffer. No problem for buffers under 300MB, but well, some BloatWare^TM products require really fat files, so we now have a PrintBuffer macro that is much less versatile but respects the limits of the OS.

PrintBuffer
[/color]   PrintBuffer #1:eax, esi   ; #file:bytes, pBuffer - corresponds to Print #1:eax, esi syntax
   PrintBuffer #1, esi, eax   ; #file, pBuffer, bytes - same code generated but different syntax
Rem   - returns # of bytes written in edx, Win API WriteFile return code in eax
   - use this macro instead of e.g. Print #1:eax, esi to avoid memory problems
Key   pb1

[jj2007]

30 June 2011:

- There are still some fans of console apps around, so the goodies today are Locate and Input$. More in the Windows Console Input thread.

- Reading and writing to the registry could be a lot easier:

GetRegVal
   PrintLine GetRegVal("HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment","Path", "no path found"), CrLf$
   EnvVars equ "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment"   ; long paths: use an equate
   Print GetRegVal(EnvVars,"PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER", "unknown"), CrLf$   ; get to know your CPU...
   print GetRegVal(EnvVars, "PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER", "unknown"), 13, 10   ; same with Masm32 print macro
   PrintLine GetRegVal("HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment","PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER", "unknown"), CrLf$            ; same with full path
   PrintLine GetRegVal("HKCR\.doc", 0, "documents"), " are files with ending *.doc"
   PrintLine GetRegVal("HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.bax", 0, "unknown"), " are files with ending *.bax"
   ; this line would fail with a run-time error because the key does not exist and there is no default value given:
   ; PrintLine GetRegVal("HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.bax", 0), " are files with ending *.bax"
   PrintLine GetRegVal("HKCU\Console","FaceName", "Arial"), " is your default console font"   ; works fine
   ; this line would produce garbage because GetRegVal can only be first para in Let and Print combinations:
   ; PrintLine "Your default console font is ", GetRegVal("HKCU\Console","FaceName", "Arial")
   ; workaround with Cat$ (no need for cleanup with Clr$):
   PrintLine Cat$("Your default console font is "+GetRegVal("HKCU\Console","FaceName", "Arial"))
   ; workaround with a permanent string, e.g. in esi:
   Let esi=GetRegVal("HKCU\Console","FaceName", "Arial")
   PrintLine "Your default console font is ", esi, " with FontFamily ", Hex$(GetRegVal("HKCU\Console","FontFamily"))
   Clr$ esi   ; if you don't use esi in another Let esi=..., a Clr$ esi should free the heap
Rem   - returns in eax either a pointer to a string, or a DWORD
   - if you provide a default value, GetRegVal returns it even if the key and/or the value are not present
Key   grv(

SetRegVal
   SetRegVal "HKCU\TheKey","TheValueName", "NewString")
   SetRegVal "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Console\JJ", "NewValue", 12345      ; creates new REG_DWORD
   SetRegVal "HKCU\Console\JJ", "NewValue", 54321            ; changes existing value
   SetRegVal "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Console\JJ", 0, "New default value"   ; 0: sets (Default) to a string
   ; do not replace an existing REG_SZ with a dword - this will produce an exception:
   ; SetRegVal "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Console\JJ", 0, 123
   ; existing REG_DWORD receives a DWORD string pointer - this works but is meaningless and bug-prone:
   ; SetRegVal "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Console\JJ", "NewValue", "A string"
   ; tries to create a new key, will fail with a run-time error:
   ; SetRegVal "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Console\NoSuchKey", "NewValue", 123
Rem   - returns in eax the original new value
   - you are not allowed to create a new key, but you can create a new REG_SZ or REG_DWORD value
Key   -
[/color]

The rules are simple:
  if key found: return string or dword in eax
  if key or value not found:
   - get with default: return default dword or string
   - get, no default: trigger run-time error
   - set: always run-time error

Sample output:

Code Select Expand

C:\Programmi\ImageMagick-6.6.5-Q8;%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot
%\System32\Wbem;D:\DB_CIRCS\WEBSITE\0_SERVER\PhpBin;D:\masm32\bin;D:\masm32\incl
ude;C:\Programmi\FreeArc\bin

x86 Family 6 Model 14 Stepping 8, GenuineIntel
x86 Family 6 Model 14 Stepping 8, GenuineIntel
x86 Family 6 Model 14 Stepping 8, GenuineIntel

Word.Document.8 are files with ending *.doc
unknown are files with ending *.bax
Lucida Console is your default console font
Your default console font is Lucida Console
Your default console font is Lucida Console with FontFamily 00000036

[jj2007]

Small but significant change in version 30Juneb: The user can choose if a GetRegVal/SetRegVal failure triggers a run-time-error (with ExitProcess etc - default behaviour), or just a 'failure flag' in edx. Check MbRegValRTE in \masm32\MasmBasic\MbGuide.rtf

[jj2007]

One more hint related to the registry: If you plan to create a new string value, the 30Juneb version will create a REG_DWORD instead (there is no problem with existing REG_SZ values). Replace line 1295 of \masm32\MasmBasic\MasmBasic.inc as follows:

  tmp$ SUBSTR <rkNew>, 1, 1
  is INSTR <"'>, tmp$
  if is

  tmp$ SUBSTR <rkNew>, 1, 1
  is INSTR <"'(>, tmp$
  if is

The added ( allows to use e.g. (eax) to force a string value. Most MasmBasic string macros return some variant of (eax) in brackets anyway.

include \masm32\MasmBasic\MasmBasic.inc
   Init
   mov eax, chr$("Masm32 is great!!")
   SetRegVal "HKCU\Console", "FancyNewValue", (eax)  ; force REG_SZ
   Inkey "ok?"
   Exit
end start

[jj2007]

Update 14 July here with docu for DDE conversations with Ms Word:

   SendWordCommands INIT   ; prepare a DDE session; Word must be running
   .if eax
      SendWordCommands "[FileNewDefault:InsertFile °\"D:\Masm32\include\Windows.inc°\"]"
      SendWordCommands Chr$("[InsertFile ", 34, "D:\Masm32\include\WinExtra.inc", 34, "]")
      Let esi=FileRead$("\masm32\RichMasm\OpenDocInWord.bas")
      SendWordCommands esi   ; send the contents of the BAS file
      SendWordCommands "[MsgBox °\"Cute°\"]"   ; show a box in Ms Word
   .else
      MsgBox 0, "MS Word doesn't answer", "Sorry", MB_OK
   .endif
   SendWordCommands EXIT


Rem   - swc init returns the DdeConnect retval in eax
   - DDE uses ancient WordBasic; get the help file here ; to make it appear in
     RichMasm's Help menu, save it as \masm32\RichMasm\Help\WrdBasic.hlp
   - a sequence is included in [squared brackets]
   - multiple commands can be separated by a colon (:)
   - for strings, use either the escape sequence °\" (Alt 248, 92, 34) or Chr$("xx", 34, "xx") - see above
   - you can also use Let or Cat$ to send commands to MS Word
   - it is your responsibility to respect legality when using this feature