BRACKENRIDGE@USC-ISIB@sri-unix.UUCP (09/17/83)
From: Billy <BRACKENRIDGE@USC-ISIB> Does anyone know of an alternative to the IBM Microsoft Assembler Version 1.00? My immediate concern is that I now have a hard disk with structured directories and I would like my include statements to take path names. It would also be nice to have 8087 support. The assembler never has been my favorite piece of software from Microsoft. It is much slower than it ought to be and is full of well known errors, all except the notorious "OFFSET" problem can be circumvented by careful construction of macro programs. While IBM has never been known to rush in to correct software problems, Microsoft usually has an updated version of the IBM product on the market for generic MS-DOS. I haven't seen such a product for the assembler. Do the Compaq and other 8086/8 based machines just use the IBM assembler?
michael@rlgvax.UUCP (Michael Connick) (09/23/83)
Sorry to use the net for a response, but I am unable to reach you at the path you specified. The Victor 9000 offers the latest version of the Microsoft assembler. I have an alpha version of the latest MS-DOS 2.0, which is quite different from PC-DOS 2.0. The programmers reference manual for this version of MS-DOS 2.0 was delivered on a floppy and contains many assembler macros, including macros for accessing paths. If you are interested, and can let me know how to contact you, I can send you copies of these macros. Hopefully, they will also work with PC-DOS 2.0. By the way, this version of MS-DOS 2.0 has functions for maintaining compatibility with both MS-DOS 1.0 and XENIX, along with some discussion on how to write code for XENIX compatibility. Does PC-DOS 2.0 have such XENIX compatible functions? Also, exactly what is the OFFSET problem of the assembler that you referred to in your article?