THE ARROWSOFT ASSEMBLER

Public Domain Version 1.00D


User's Guide










The Arrowsoft Assembler Program and Manual are both
Copyright (C) 1986 by Arrowsoft Systems, Inc.
554 West Sixth Avenue
Larkview, MO 66069





































Arrowsoft Assembler v1.00 User's Guide




INTRODUCTION

Thank you for trying out the public domain version of our

Arrowsoft Assembler. We feel that the best way to alert you, the

programmer, to our fine line of professional products is to let

you use one. Once you have experienced the high quality and ease

of use of this free product, we hope that you will contact us

regarding our other software (our address is on the cover of this

manual).


You will no doubt notice that this manual is not exhaustive; in

fact, it includes the least amount of information we felt we

could include without robbing the program of its usefulness.

There are two reasons for the brevity of this manual: First, we

have targeted professional software developers with our products,

and we suspect that an experienced professional will have no

trouble figuring out how to use the Arrowsoft Assembler with the

information given; second, the program is, after all, free and we

feel that the quality of this assembler will more that compensate

you for the time you spend learning to use it.


Please note that this is NOT a supported product. If you contact

us, we will be happy to discuss our line of software but we will

NOT answer questions about the Arrowsoft Assembler.


Again, we thank you for giving our product a try.


(NOTE: 'Microsoft' and 'Microsoft Macro Assembler' are trademarks

of Microsoft Corporation. 'Arrowsoft', 'Arrowsoft Professional

Assembler' and 'Super Link' are trademarks of Arrowsoft Systems,

Inc.)




OVERVIEW

The Arrowsoft Assembler takes as its input 8086, 8088, 80186 and

80286 assembly language source files and produces relocatable

object modules which may be linked and run under the MS-DOS and

PC-DOS operating systems. The syntax of the input files is a

superset of that accepted by the Microsoft Macro Assembler

(versions 3.0 and later). In fact, most programs written for the

Microsoft product should assemble without modification with the

Arrowsoft Assembler.


The remaining sections of this manual will cover, in this order,

assembler command line options, input language specifications,

linking and execution of assembled object modules, and assembler

error messages.




INVOKING THE ARROWSOFT ASSEMBLER

You may run the Arrowsoft Assembler interactively or directly

from the DOS command line. To invoke the assembler

interactively, simply type





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Arrowsoft Assembler v1.00 User's Guide




asm

at the DOS prompt and follow the ensuing instructions. To run

the assembler non-interactively, use the following syntax:


asm source [,object] [,list] [,xref] [options] [;]

where 'source' is a filespec for the source file (default

extension .ASM), 'object' is a filespec for the object file

(default extension .OBJ), 'list' is a filespec for the listing

file (default extension .LST) and 'xref' is a filespec for the

cross-reference file (default extension .CRF). Note that all

filespecs may consist of a drive letter, a pathname, a filename

and an extension. If the object file is not specified, the

assembler will use the source filename with the .OBJ extension.

If the list and cross-reference files are not specified, the

assembler will not produce them. Finally, the semicolon (;) will

force the assembler to assume default values for any unspecified

parameters.




OPTION CODES

The options list consists of a sequence of option codes. These

option codes consist of a slash (/) or dash (-) followed by one

or more letters, case being insignificant. Most of these options

are compatible with Microsoft conventions.


/A Write segments in alphabetical order
/Bnumber Set buffer size
/Dsymbol Define assembler symbol
/E Generate 8087/80287 emulator code
/Ipath Set 'include' search path
/ML Case sensitive internal labels
/MX Case sensitive external and public labels
/MU Convert labels to uppercase
/R Generate 8087/80287 floating point code
/S Write segments in source code order
/X Include false conditionals in listing
/Z Display error lines on screen


Many of these command line options are self explanatory; for

whose which aren't, see the descriptions below:



/B Set Buffer Size


Sets the size of the buffer used to hold the source file during

assembly. The 'number' is the number of 1K pages reserved for

use as a buffer. You may set the buffer size to any value

between 1K and 63K; default buffer size is 32K. Note that a

larger buffer can speed assembly of large files considerably.



/E Generate 8087/80287 Emulator Code





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Arrowsoft Assembler v1.00 User's Guide




If you are writing programs for use with the 8087/80287 numeric

processor on a machine which does not have the processor, and you

have an 8087/80287 emulator library available, the /E option

directs the assembler to generate code for the emulator.



/I Set 'include' file search paths


You may direct the assembler to search up to 5 directories for

'include' files by including a '/Ipath' command for EACH of

them. For example, to set the search paths '\bin\lib' and

'\asm\lib', include the following in your options list:

/I\bin\lib/I\asm\lib.



/R


This option directs the assembler to generate floating point code

for the 8087/80287 numeric processor. Note that programs

assembled with the '/R' option will run ONLY on machines which

have an 8087/80287 installed.




ARROWSOFT ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE

As we mentioned earlier, the Arrowsoft Assembly Language is a

superset of the well-known Microsoft Macro Assembler Language. We

modeled our system after Microsoft's for two reasons: First, the

language has a flexible and moderately powerful macro facility;

second, and for this public domain project most important, there

is a plethora of third-party books which explain how to program

using the Microsoft product. We recommend that you purchase one

of these guides if you are not familiar with 8086 assembly

language. If you would like to take advantage of the many

extensions to the Microsoft Language we have implemented in the

Arrowsoft Assembler, you must do one of two things: Try to figure

them out for yourself (using experimentation, disassembly or

anything else you can think of); or you can contact us about

purchasing the Arrowsoft Professional Assembler, which includes

the complete documentation. Again, please DO NOT CALL us about

the Arrowsoft Assembler; we will not answer any questions or

provide clues as to how to access the assembler's advanced

features.




LINKING AND EXECUTING ARROWSOFT OBJECT MODULES

The Arrowsoft Assembler produces relocatable object modules which

are compatible with the Microsoft 8086 Object Linker (versions

3.0 and later). This means that programs assembled by the

Arrowsoft Assembler may be linked with other Microsoft

Linker-compatible programs generated by other assemblers and

compilers. If you need more information on how to use the

Microsoft 8086 Object Linker, see your DOS or Microsoft language

manual.





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Arrowsoft Assembler v1.00 User's Guide




By the way, we would like you to know about Arrowsofts Super Link

8086/8086 Object Link Utility. Super Link is a full-service

overlaying linker which is fully compatible with the Microsoft

8086 Object Linker, yet much faster and far more versatile.

Contact us at the address on the cover of this manual for more

information.




ASSEMBLER ERROR MESSAGES

An Arrowsoft Assembler error report consists of three parts: A

source file line number, an error number and a terse error

description. In most cases, the error messages, in spite of

their brevity, are self explanatory. However, for those few

messages which require addtional elaboration, we offer the

following explanations:



2 Internal error


This message will appear only if an error occurred within the

assembler itself. If you see this message, please send an

assembly listing of the source file and any other relevant

information (DOS version, assembler version, etc.) to the address

on the cover of this manual.



68 Can't reach with segment reg


You have not issued the appropriate ASSUME directive.



99 Line too long expanding


Expanding an EQU-defined symbol would result in a line too long

for the assembler to handle. Check for inadvertent recursion in

the symbol.



Out of Memory


Either the source file exceeds the 64K limit of the assembler or

the symbol table exceeds its allocation. If this condition

occurs, try assembling without creating list or cross-reference

files. If this doesn't work, try dividing your source code into

several smaller source files and assembling them separately. The

resulting code may then be linked with a link utility. (Again,

we can't resist pointing out that the Arrowsoft Professional

Assembler uses ALL available memory for the assembly process; in

fact, it will assemble a file of arbitrary size, regardless of

memory limitations.)



Internal Error


See the explanation for error number 2 above.





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Arrowsoft Assembler v1.00 User's Guide






THE ARROWSOFT PROFESSIONAL ASSEMBLER

Our real reason for giving you this program free of charge is to

encourage you to purchase our commercial product, the Arrowsoft

Professional Assembler. The program you have now differs from the

full program in only three respects: (1) It includes no

documentation for those language features which extend the

Microsoft Macro Assembly Language (although they are implemented

by the public domain version); (2) the maximum input file size is

limited to 64K bytes; and (3) it is not supported via our 24 hour

toll-free help line (in fact, it is not supported at all by us).

With these 3 exceptions, the program you now have is identical to

the Professional Assembler.


If you decide you'd like to purchase the Arrowsoft Professional

Assembler, send a postcard requesting our catalog to the address

on the cover of this manual. Our catalog will show you our

entire line of professional software development products and

will convince you that our quality and prices are as competitive

as you will find anywhere.




CONCLUDING REMARKS AND CREDITS

Again, we would like to thank you for trying our product. We

hope that the remarks we've made concerning our programming

products (Arrowsoft Professional Assembler and Super Link 8086

Object Linker) have piqued your curiosity enough that you'll

write to us for more information. Further, we hope that actually

using one of our products has convinced you of our dedication to

quality and performance. Finally, we hope to welcome you to our

growing family of satisfied customers.


Even if you don't buy anything from us, you can do us a favor.

We want you to distribute this product to all of your friends by

any means possible. You may post it to bulletin boards, offer it

through your computer club or just copy it and pass it around.

We only ask that (1) you charge nothing for the software beyond

reasonable copying and disk costs and (2) that you distribute the

two files (ASM.EXE and ASM.DOC) together and without

modification.


The Arrowsoft Assembler was written by Kaplan 'Kap' Morovitz and

tested by the programming staff at Arrowsoft. Since 'Kap' writes

only in assembly language and C, this manual was written by Stan

Goldwyn-Benton.














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