I just bought a book on Assembler that costed fifty-one dollars - then discovered it was written in 1962 and was ENTIRELY incompatible with my version of MASM, no matter how much I tweaked. I could return it, but I'd like to see if I can find an older version of MASM that the code would work with. The book is Professional Assembly Language by Richard Blum. Any suggestions?
stormchaser,
Find a masm written back in 1962??
ms WAS NOT around back then.
infact I am not sure the 8080 family was around back then.
hell I was still watching cartoons.
good luck.
Zcoder....
Really? I'll go check the date again. It does mention MASM in it.
Yep, the date is 1962 and it suggests MASM in the chapter 'Tools of the trade'.
stormchaser,
I am suprised, really.
I am not a MS freak so I am not sure, but I did not think bill gates was out of MIT
yet, but what do I know,I was only 4 then and old bill might be way older them me.
if it turns out he had his company going back then, and anyway I am not sure the
8080 family existed yet, but hey that might surprise me too, now I have douts.
Zcoder....
Is this pulished by Wrox?
The copyright date is 2005, and from the table of contents at Amazon, the chapter "Tools of the Trade" lists GNU tools that would normally be run on Linux/Unix. Although the recent versions of GAS have an Intel mode for machine instructions, I'm guessing the directives are still in that old GAS syntax. (The roots of its syntax are the DEC/Digital assemblers like MACRO-11.)
The first 8080 (8-bit) systems came out in 1975, so a date of 1962 just can't be right. Unless that's the date the author started his programming career.
Bill Gates was still in grade school in 1962.
zcoder,
Quote...but I did not think bill gates was out of MIT...
yet,
I believe that B.G. went to Harvard, not MIT. Ratch
There is also a book with the same title which was published in 1962 by Richard Blum (according to some sites I googled down).
Perhaps back than there was an assembler for some platform called MASM as well.
so, stormchaser, you probably purchased a wrong _version_ of the book :)
Ratch, he went to both, MIT first, he was there when I was there and that date is impossible. Assemblers were in the Microcode stage at that point and were not in the public domain (Cray OS dates to that era but those systems have only recently been declassified by the US Government). Microsoft was not even a dream and Zilog and Mostek did not exist yet (the precursers to Intel). My memories are affected by my medical condition but that information comes from my private archives so is reliable. I would be VERY interested in the contents of that book, I suspect it is a current documentation. That does not mean I am right but, think about it... there was no masm (I should say Microsoft) in 1962.
I had to edit this post to be more clear about 'MS masm'.
Paul
The copyright for Microsoft MASM dates 1981 onwards but recently Ratch mentioned a far earlier tool called MASM so it may be something of the same name but far earlier.
D'OH! It turns out it was written in 2005, and the author was born in 1962(or at least that's what it looks like)
PBrennick,
QuoteRatch, he went to both, MIT first,...
I stand corrected. Ratch
hutch--,
Quote...but recently Ratch mentioned a far earlier tool called MASM ...
Yes, it was an assembler for a mainframe. MASM meant Meta-Assembler. It had features and concepts that are complete missing from MS MASM. As I mentioned in another thread, it could also be made to assemble code written for other processors with differenct op codes and word sizes by writing user defined "PROCs". I can point out references to this software if anybody really gives a damn. Ratch
Ratch,
I am not trying to correct anybody just had some useful information. I am far more interested in the mainframe thing, I think your information is far more interesting. My company does a lot of mainframe programming though the technology is dying at this point. We never called it META-anything. In the circles I travelled in, we call it 'RGB programming'. Am I talking about the same thing that you are talking about?
Paul
PBrennick,
I used to write programs using this assembler. Unfortunately, it was never converted to run on a APPLE or WINTEL. When I started to learn MS MASM, I really missed some of the features the UNISYS MASM had. In its native mode, it assembled for the UNISYS 1100/2200 mainsframe, which had a 36-bit word. But, we could also use it to assemble code for 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit military computers for software contracts the company had with the military industrial complex. It could just as well have done code for a 19-bit word computer, if such a thing existed. This was done by defining output for the target computer with "directions" implemented by "PROCs". These PROCs, which MS calls MACROs, generated inline code instructions for the target computer. So there is a cross terminology between MS and UNISYS. That feature made it sort of a user programmed assembler. The documents below have a strong UNISYS mainframe flavor, but the assembler can be made to do other things. Ratch
http://192.61.3.24/cfapps/inforep/topic.cfm?id=32&more=detail <---Read the last paragraph of this link
http://public.support.unisys.com/2200/docs/cp10.0/PDF/78308269-001.PDF <----Look at section 5 of this manual.
Quote from: stormchaser on April 29, 2006, 01:06:38 AM
D'OH! It turns out it was written in 2005, and the author was born in 1962(or at least that's what it looks like)
So you're looking at a book with GAS syntax for the x86/Pentium machines.
That's what Randy Hyde's web site mentions in one of his articles about various flavors of assemblers.
hey are there any unisys manuals available on the net on meta assembler thats run on unisys mainframe.
any kind of tutorials or help manuals...
avinav4u,
Damn, I never expected to hear of a request like yours. I used to use MASM (Meta-Assembler) daily when I worked for Unisys 16 years ago. It was called a meta assembler because it could emulate instructions of other CPUs besides its native mainframe. It could even change its output for different word sizes, for instance a 19 bit word if such a CPU existed. It had lots of other features not found in MS's MASM too. Why can't you find it with a simple Google search? The link is below. Ratch
http://192.61.3.24/cfapps/inforep/topic_pr.cfm?ID=32
PS, here is a quote from the site.
QuoteMASM is not limited to generating code for a particular hardware architecture even though the predefined OS 2200 instruction set is loaded when the MASM processor is loaded. With the built-in directives and functions, you can define the instruction set and useful directives for any hardware architecture, if the output of MASM (OS 2200 relocatable binary or object module format) can be converted to a form acceptable to the operating system on the alternate architecture.