DOS ain't dead

> 200 EUR if it really works. Not very much, but better than nothing.

Tempting. However, the condition "if it really works" seems hard IMO.

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MS-DOS forever!

> This is "desperately" off-topic, even for a "Btw". It's on my todo list,
> btw.

OK

> Btw: I'm not totally happy with the "DOS ain't dead" forum name. From a
> "marketing" point of view, such a name is slightly unwise.

Please explain!

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Forum admin

> > NASM and FASM do accept "-d" now (as does YASM or Watcom's WASM).
>
> FASM supports -d? Wow, very good. I thought it refuses cmdline parameters
> "by design"? Has this changed recently?

The goal was to not have to use too many specific cmdline options just to get correct and identical output each time. It's much easier if it always generates the same output by default.

I dunno the exact reasoning behind -m and -p (I think perhaps to speed up assembly for large projects), but Tomasz (FASM creator) was recently convinced by vid (FASMLIB author) that it was intolerable trying to assemble such a multi-OS project (Win32, Linux) easily without such an option. Both are very smart, so I imagine they had lots of esoteric cases to consider before even considering such a solution. So now, it's "up to the user" to use -d responsibly. "With power comes great responsibility." (And technically, some people on the forum had complained about the lack of such option and even one wrote their own hack to implement it. But Tomasz has a broader sense of it all than, say, me so I can't truly second guess him.)

> FASM still sucks because it doesn't support OMF output format, can't
> create proper listings and has no support for debug info ...

1). Use Agner's OBJCONV. Or write it entirely in FASM (hence not needing to link with something else). I know, not perfect solution, but OBJ is a complex beast, so it's non-trivial to implement. You may as well use NASM (or LZASM or something old like ArrowASM or the imperfect Watcom assembler) if you desire it so badly.

2). 1.67.23 had a patch to allow listing output, which is much better than nothing. However, Tomasz hasn't updated it yet (it broke when he tweaked some stuff). My FreeDOS disk #3 has the DOS FASMLIST.EXE (1.67.23).

3). He has been somewhat planning Mach-O format (but doesn't have a Mac), FASM 2 (but doesn't have time), as well as debug formats (but didn't perfectly like any pre-existing formats). Also, two of his computers fizzed out recently, so that didn't help him any. :-/

FASM isn't perfect, I never said it was. But it's very very good. However, if you have reasons to use another, feel free. However, I don't personally see any huge advantages TASM has (anymore) over most other assemblers.

> > But hey, to each his own.
>
> Yes, but YOU started this nice little battle with your cheap shots at
> TASM.

TASM is not bad, but I do kinda hate ideal mode. I never understood how it made everything "so simple". Back in the day, it was faster than MASM (and cheaper?). I mean, it supports powerful macros (which I nevertheless shun for their complexity). So, feel free to use it. I don't want to, however.

> I will defend MASM and TASM, especially if the shots come from
> someone who hasn't proved yet that he is able to write non-trivial
> programs in assembly. Did you already?

Sorry if my knocks against TASM's strucs, macros, etc. was rude to you, that was not my intention. I just don't particularly like all that cruft at all. And no, I have no Comp. Sci. degree, never wrote my own OS, compiler, compressor, or anything of that sort. All I write are dinky utils for my own use (hobbyist). So yes, I suck. It's not that MASM or TASM are bad, but I prefer something else.

As for non-trivial, do FASMW and FASMD not count? DexOS? MenuetOS? Various .DLLs and other things (FASMLIB, PROE). This proves that FASM is not a "toy". But surely I am not (nor ever will be) a good example (IDT, LGDT, etc. all confuse me beyond belief).

P.S. DOS386, the other FASM IDEs I was referring to were FASMW (Win32) and Fresh (Win32, discontinued). And there's also the external IDE plugin by shoorick for WinAsm Studio.

Japheth wrote:

> FASM supports -d?

YES.

> Wow, very good.



> I thought it refuses cmdline parameters "by design"?

YES. But here we have a reasonable exception from this rule

> Has this changed recently?

YES.

> FASM still sucks because it doesn't support OMF output format

Tomasz doesn't like OMF

> can't create proper listings

I have no idea why he doesn't include the listing code into the main versions

Rugxulo wrote:

> Use Agner's OBJCONV.

32-bit only ?

> Or write it entirely in FASM (hence not needing to link with something else)



> but OBJ is a complex beast, so it's non-trivial to implement.

As Tomasz said

> You may as well use NASM (or LZASM

OK ...

> or something old like ArrowASM

Joking ? I prefer NOT to use db for encoding every 3rd instruction

> or the imperfect Watcom assembler

or imperfect Po-ASM :

> > POASM iss not MASM. Again, RTFM.

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