DOS ain't dead - WASM 1.7j :-D

Japheth

Germany (South),
13.03.2008, 18:04

WASM 1.7j :-D (Announce)

Hello,

WASM v1.7j is available at:

binary: http://www.japheth.de/Download/wasm17jb.zip
source: http://www.japheth.de/Download/wasm17js.zip

--- readme.txt ------------------------------------------------------------

1. About WASM v1.7j

This is a fork of WASM v1.7. It is experimental.

2. Changes

- bugfix: string equates now handled the way MASM does.
- bugfix: fixup of start address now refers to the group of the start
address's segment. WASM supplied in OW v1.7a still has problems if the
start address is in a segment which isn't the first one in a group.
- bugfix: EXTERNDEFs which aren't referenced in the source now won't
cause a EXTDEF entry to be created in the object module.
- local labels in procedures supported.
- '::' operator supported to make a label inside a procedure global.
- PROTO directive is accepted.
- some "MASM options" are accepted:
+ option proc: private | public
+ option dotname (does nothing, WASM always allows a '.' prefix)
+ option casemap:none | notpublic | all (notpublic is dummy)
- FLAT accepted as segment attribute.
- EXTERNDEF will accept structure names as item's type
- TYPEDEF accepted (works for "simple" types only).
- /zcp option added to make WASM preserve case of identifiers.
- LOWWORD and HIGHWORD operators implemented.
- lots of debug messages added.

3. Binary Creation

Binary and source are split in 2 packages, WASM17JB and WASM17JS.
To create the binary WASM17JS is needed. It contains a Makefile
intended to be run with WMAKE (please read the comments in that
file before trying to run WMAKE). The result will be a DOS binary
in HX PE format with Win32 emulation linked statically.

4. License

Read LICENSE.TXT for details.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

In case you ask why: that's a good question. I hope it will become more clear in the near future.

---
MS-DOS forever!

Japheth

Germany (South),
13.03.2008, 18:56

@ Japheth

HimemX v3.32 ...

Post reply

is available at http://www.japheth.de/jemm.html

Changes: Virtually nothing. But there's no longer MASM/TASM required to assemble the source. It can be done with free tools, WASM v1.7j and WLINK.

If you want new features for this little program (no "unreal" mode, permanent "unreal" mode, new options, ...), noone and nothing will stop you...

---
MS-DOS forever!

Japheth

Germany (South),
13.03.2008, 19:10

@ Japheth

Jemm v5.72 ...

Post reply

is available at http://www.japheth.de/Jemm.html

No functional changes. The binary can be created with free tools (Open Watcom + WASM v1.7j) now and no longer needs MASM or TASM ...

---
MS-DOS forever!

Rugxulo Usono, 16.03.2008, 19:06 @ Japheth	WASM, HIMEMX, JEMM Post reply
	BIG thanks for your efforts!

Japheth

Germany (South),
17.03.2008, 10:32

@ Rugxulo

WASM, HIMEMX, JEMM

Post reply

> BIG thanks for your efforts! :-D

:-D

Don't forget that WASM - even WASM v1.7j - is still a TOY. That is, it's pretty easy to make it generate bad code.

---
MS-DOS forever!

Rugxulo Usono, 17.03.2008, 20:40 @ Japheth	WASM, HIMEMX, JEMM Post reply
	> Don't forget that WASM - even WASM v1.7j - is still a TOY. > That is, it's pretty easy to make it generate bad code. GAS can allegedly output bad code too if you're not careful, but it's not considered a toy. And people do still try using it as a stand-alone assembler (uh, why?). But anyways, I like toys, they're fun.

Japheth

Germany (South),
22.03.2008, 09:56

@ Japheth

WASM 1.7j project page

Post reply

There is a project page available now:

http://www.japheth.de/wasm.html

As it is mentioned there, WASM v1.7j is still experimental. Therefore, please don't report bugs.

However, a good name might be necessary if no reintegration to Open Watcom is possible in the near future. Suggestions are welcome. Naming it JASM isn't appropriate IMO and would also cause some choleric people to get red heads (of anger). A nice name might be WASNDAS :-D .

---
MS-DOS forever!

Steve US, 22.03.2008, 12:12 @ Japheth	WASM 1.7j project page Post reply
	> A nice name might be WASNDAS . Or maybe wildcard it: WAS?

Rugxulo

Usono,
23.03.2008, 15:37

@ Steve

WASM 1.7j project page

Post reply

> > A nice name might be WASNDAS :-D .

Sorry to sound stupid, but what does that mean?

Other (silly ideas):

* JOWA - Japheth's OpenWatcom Assembler
* DOSToy ;-)
* "I can't believe it's not MASM"
* SHAM - Someone Hacked (my) AsseMbler! (SHASM has already been used before)
* NONASM - "no-name" assembler
* WATASM - what assembler?!
* WAFDOL - Watcom assembler for dead OS and language (since "asm is dead")
* WHASM - Watcom "Hacked" ASseMbler

Rugxulo Usono, 25.03.2008, 06:16 @ Rugxulo	WASM 1.7j project page Post reply
	> > > A nice name might be WASNDAS . Or maybe WAFFLE - Weird (or Watcom) Assembler For Freaky Little Experiments P.S. Any reason it (and HXRT) needs EMS? Normally it's fine with my default setup, but otherwise I always forget and it whines "insufficient memory", which I find odd.

Japheth

Germany (South),
25.03.2008, 16:19

@ Rugxulo

WASM 1.7j project page

Post reply

> P.S. Any reason it (and HXRT) needs EMS? Normally it's fine with my
> default setup, but otherwise I always forget and it whines "insufficient
> memory", which I find odd.

Yes, definitely. WASM and HXRT need 256 kB EMS memory to store their XBQA-V2 information there.

---
MS-DOS forever!

Rugxulo Usono, 26.03.2008, 03:28 @ Japheth	WASM 1.7j project page Post reply
	> > P.S. Any reason it (and HXRT) needs EMS? Normally it's fine with my > > default setup, but otherwise I always forget and it whines > "insufficient > > memory", which I find odd. > > Yes, definitely. WASM and HXRT need 256 kB EMS memory to store their > XBQA-V2 information there. It's all emulated EMS anyways, so why not just use real XMS?

Rugxulo

Usono,
08.04.2008, 16:04

@ Japheth

WASM 1.7j project page

Post reply

> > P.S. Any reason it (and HXRT) needs EMS? Normally it's fine with my
> > default setup, but otherwise I always forget and it whines
> "insufficient
> > memory", which I find odd.
>
> Yes, definitely. WASM and HXRT need 256 kB EMS memory to store their
> XBQA-V2 information there.

Well, the deal was that I sometimes (rarely) boot up DOS without EMS (only XMS), and yet I had been always loading HXLDR32, and it didn't work without EMS plus I couldn't even uninstall it (meh). Not a big deal, though, I eventually remembered I could do this in AUTOEXEC: "if exist EMMXXXX0 lh hxldr32"

Japheth

Germany (South),
08.04.2008, 15:25

@ Japheth

JWasm 1.7

Post reply

There was an update and a name change. Now the thing calls itself JWasm. Sounds much better IMO and avoids confusion.

The new URL is:

http://www.japheth.de/jwasm.html

It's no longer experimental, it's Beta now. Bug reports are possible.

---
MS-DOS forever!

Japheth

Germany (South),
05.05.2008, 13:40

@ Japheth

JWasm 1.7 last beta

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> It's no longer experimental, it's Beta now. Bug reports are possible.

JWasm has improved a lot during the last month. All known bugs are fixed and a last beta has been uploaded.

---
MS-DOS forever!

Japheth

Germany (South),
13.05.2008, 15:39

@ Japheth

Another JWasm 1.7 last beta

Post reply

> > It's no longer experimental, it's Beta now. Bug reports are possible.
>
> JWasm has improved a lot during the last month. All known bugs are fixed
> and a last beta has been uploaded.

This was true, but there have been more bugs detected in the meantime which made another "last" beta necessary.

This one has been successfully tested with the core parts of HX - hdpmi, dpmildr, dkrnl32, duser32 and dgdi32.

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MS-DOS forever!