DOS ain't dead

testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator (Emulation)

posted by bocke, 07.05.2026, 13:33

> I am also interested in those benchmarks. But don't really have a machine
> to test it. Beside maybe HP 200 LX, but that's 80186 class machine.
>

I didn't write the reason. I am considering getting Atari Portfolio. 80c88 with 128KB of which ~32kb is by default used as a ram disk so available memory is a bit more than 64kb realistically.

A86 was the only assembler I've seen used on the platform itself (searching posts on PoFo and PoFo file archives). It seems it's fast and uses a little memory.

The README advertises that it's very speedy (noticeably faster than MASM). According to Rugxulo's testing that seems to be true. The biggest problem is that it's shareware with some specific terms of unregistered use.

Complete thread:

• testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 29.04.2026, 05:41 (Emulation)
  • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Oso2k, 29.04.2026, 16:56
    • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 30.04.2026, 02:45
  • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 01.05.2026, 13:11
  • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 01.05.2026, 13:23
  • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - bocke, 02.05.2026, 00:40
    • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - rr, 02.05.2026, 16:00
      • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - bocke, 02.05.2026, 20:52
    • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - bocke, 07.05.2026, 13:33
      • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - RayeR, 07.05.2026, 15:38
        • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - bocke, 08.05.2026, 15:22
      • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 10.05.2026, 05:38
  • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Khusraw, 03.05.2026, 12:56
    • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 08.05.2026, 04:39
      • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - bocke, 08.05.2026, 14:49
        • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 09.05.2026, 09:58
          • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - bocke, 16.05.2026, 00:27
            • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Rugxulo, 16.05.2026, 05:05
      • testing speed of DOS assemblers under djl's 8086 DOS emulator - Khusraw, 12.05.2026, 12:29