assembler in mondern times

[dog]

Hi,

It's been almost ten years, now, that I work as a teacher of computer science. Lately I've been assigned "algorithms" which is a subject I enjoy greatly.

For demonstration purposes, I've presented the same algorithm in a couple of different languages like pascal, c++ and java, so that my students can see the differences.

All of the sudden, I have an interest to play with all the different languages I have programmed in earlier times, refresh my rusty knowledge.

In MS-DOS times I have programmed with Turbo Assembler, too. I have spent long hours in front of my pc, together with "Programming for MS-DOS" and Swan's "Mastering Turbo Assembler", running my tasm compiler over and over, checking with my debugger the memory and the registers in step-by-step execution.

I'd like to try and make some simple programs with keyboard/screen input/output. So, I'd like to know what is the state of assembler in windows times. My system is WinXP32. What is the best assembler for XP? Is there a friendly programming environment? Is there online documentation with examples and simple programs? Is MASM what I need?

(not sure whether I post in the right subforum)
Thanks :)
Dimitris

[jj2007]

Hello Dimitris,
Welcome to the Forum. You should download and install the Masm32 package (see Tips & Tricks in my signature), and start playing with simple Win32 console mode programs. Below is a little Hello World programme:

Code Select Expand

include \masm32\include\masm32rt.inc

.code
start: inkey "Hello Dimitris"
exit

end start


And we love algorithms here, so your ideas will be welcome :thumbu

[Vortex]

Hi  Dimitris,

As jj2007 stated, have a look at the Masm SDK :

http://masm32.com

There are other choices like Masm compatible assemblers Pelle's Poasm and Japheth's Jwasm.

[redskull]

I'd like to try and make some simple programs with keyboard/screen input/output.

In the Windows parlance, this is known as "Console mode".  Special system service calls exist to make this, more or less, the same as DOS calls

[dog]

 :green2 during installation it reads: "writing MASM to hard disk" instead of "installing" or "copying MASM to some file"

that's calling things by their names, indeed. it's smells like assembler already!  :U

thanks for the welcome, guys.  :bg

(hey, maybe even better: "writing bytes to disk sectors" :P )

[brethren]

you've come to the right place :U

install the masm32 package. it contains a development enviroment for making assembly language programs. all the tools you need including linker, assembler, disassembler etc. a reliable library of procedures for input/output, conversions, algorithms, string processing etc all created by members of this forum. include files to enable the creation of windows gui programs and the include files for easy use of the c runtime library. acres of examples and documentation. theres also a macro library that enables high level language type constructs and some easy to use timing macros for measuring the clock cycles of your code.

and much more besides :P masm32 has become the defacto standard for asm programmers under windows