A86 macro assembler, V3.72 now with
INCLUDE files, listings, no limit on
size of source files, fwd refs in
complex expressions, END operand,
default ORG END in DATA SEGMENT,
and more!

A86 macro assembler, V3.72 now with
INCLUDE files, listings, no limit on
size of source files, fwd refs in
complex expressions, END operand,
default ORG END in DATA SEGMENT,
and more!
A86 macro assembler, V3.72 September 20, 1994
Copyright 1986--1994 Eric Isaacson.
All rights reserved.

See the text file A01.DOC for permissions/restrictions.

This package is the new release of the A86 assembler. Please
upload it to bulletin boards, and give it to user groups,
computer departments in schools, and anyone else you think might
be interested in an assembler package for the IBM-PC.

You need to read the manual to use this program -- it's
just too complex to be self-explanatory. The file A02.DOC
takes you through a trial demonstration.


What's New

V3.72 and V3.71 fix a few bugs.

V3.70 adds numerous major features to A86. Let's cover the
INCOMPATIBILITIES first, so you will know where to tweak your
existing code:

* Error messages in A86 now have a slightly different format (on
their own line with a pointer to the error location). If you
have any source code lying around with old-format error
messages, get rid of the messages before reassembling with
this new version -- this version cannot handle them.

* I have changed the L switch to the G (code Generation) switch
to prepare for L becoming a Listing-control switch. I have
also changed the X switch to +G16, to prepare for X becoming
the XRF control switch. If you have any batch files or A86
environment-flag settings with +L or +X in them, change them
to +G for this new version.

* The DATA SEGMENT now has a default ORG value of END; that is,
it starts at the end of your program, unless you have an ORG
otherwise. V3.20--V3.22 of A86 outlawed ORGless DATA segments,
in anticipation of this feature. Versions before that had a
default ORG of 0 -- if you have source code written for a
pre-V3.20 version of A86, make sure you put ORG 0 at the start
of the first DATA SEGMENT if it was ORG-less.

Other new features include an INCLUDE directive (Chapter 9), a
listing facility (Chapters 3 and 13), END operand value (Chapter
9), pulling XREF and EXMAC functions into the assembler (Chapter
13), operand to EVEN (Chapter 9), the removal of the limit on
the length of a source file, the removal of most restrictions on
forward-references within expressions, the ability to ORG in the
DATA segment and structures to a forward-reference value, the
REF and DEF operators (Chapter 9), the K numeric base (Chapter
10), numeric operands to STOSx and MOVSx (Chapter 5), and macros
in an A86LIB library (Chapter 13).


How to Get Everything

If you have downloaded the A86Vxxx.ZIP file from a BBS, you need
only make a subdirectory on your hard drive, make that the
current subdirectory, then run the program PKUNZIP or PCUNZIP
followed by the name of the ZIP file. The program will "unzip"
(decompress) all the files of the package into your subdirectory.

There is an associated debugger, in a file D86Vxxx.ZIP, that you
may wish to look for in the same sources from which you received
this A86 package.