🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep29.135335.2625@exu.ericsson.se> exuhag@exu.ericsson.se writes:

>I've been a registered used of A86 since 1988 and it is an excellent
>product.  Some people have a thing against Mr. Isaacson's "attitude"
>but I agree with him in almost all cases, so this has never bothered
>me.  In fact, I applaud his changes to and simplifications of things
>which have been blindly perpetuated by every other company.

Agreed on all counts.  I *love* his attitude.

>A86 can create either COM files (linking is not necessary) or OBJ
>files.  The OBJ files are linkable with every language I've tried:
>Turbo C, Turbo Pascal, and Stony Brook Pascal+.  No problems.

This is a real plus.  I think the standard instructions for creating .COM
files from assmbler source are rediculous.
(MASM ...;link ...;exe2bin ...;del foo.exe) -> Yuck!

>There is a downside to this, though.  If you buy a Borland product,
>which most people seem to these days, A86 is usable but doesn't
>integrate well into the "Borland scheme of things."  That is, you
>can't use A86 to process the assembly code produced by Turbo C

True, but not all that big of a deal.  A86 went to some pains to provide
Turbo C compatibility, but it broke somewhere around the release of
Borland C++ 2.0.  My feeling is that if you need to use the Borland
products, you pretty much have to use TASM, but no biggie, because TASM
is included in most of the Borland packages, so it's not like you have
to buy something extra.

A86 is *real* good for learning and using pure assembler.
That is its calling.  I think of MASM/TASM as languages that exist to
support other languages (i.e., the HLL products of their respective
companies), not as languages that anyone would actually program in.

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