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The Rise of Turbo Assembler
Turbo Assembler, abbreviated TASM, was made by Borland International in 1988 to compete with Microsoft's
Macro Assembler (MASM). TASM 1.0 was released 1 year after the highly successful introduction of their
Turbo C compiler and associated integrated development environment (IDE) and about 6 months after Microsoft
released MASM 5.1. One of the reasons TASM became popular was because it was bundled with Turbo C and later
Borland C/C++ products.
Borland's compilers were more popular than Microsoft's equivalent compilers in the late 80s and early 90s,
especially to the hobbyist developers that could not afford Microsoft's hefty price tag. Borland products
quickly received a reputation for development tools that were cheaper, faster and more efficient than
Microsoft's as well as other competitors. However, their success was driven largely due to Borland's
products being bundled with an IDE: something the world was ready for and computers at the time were just
becoming powerful enough to run. The IDE allowed editing of source code, compiling, linking, debugging and
well as organizing the project/build settings (command line options), all without leaving the program's
environment. Microsoft's compilers, like most of the compilers of the day, consisted of diverse command line
tools. Editing source code, building and debugging was left to different tools that had to be invoked
separately. To have one program house all the tools (or at least automatically invoke the appropriate tool
when needed) proved to be an instant success.
Although Turbo Assembler never had its own IDE (nor did MASM), TASM 1.0 dealt a large blow to MASM with the
introduction of " IDEAL" Mode. IDEAL mode was designed to compensate for the
shortcomings of MASM, specifically the syntax used in MASM 5.x. If you didn't need or want the alternative
IDEAL mode syntax, and had only MASM code, TASM was guaranteed to assemble the past 3 versions of MASM's
code (4.0, 5.0, 5.1) without any (or few) modifications. MASM was described as a "complicated beast" to
deal with due to the problems with data type handling and its numerous ad-hoc assembler directives. In
comparison with MASM, TASM's IDEAL mode simplified the source code, had stricter type-checking and
introduced better structured data handling. By version 3.0, the VERSION directive was introduced to make
TASM even more compatible with specific versions of MASM as well as older versions of Turbo
Assembler. It was with this feature that TASM was well known for being "more MASM-compatible than MASM
itself". TASM's emergence onto the market was likely the single most-important motivation for Microsoft to
fix their outdated MASM syntax.
One other feature-set unique to TASM is its object-oriented capabilities added in version 3.0. MASM never
added object-oriented capabilities. My guess is that Microsoft might not have
believed there were enough assembly-language programmers that cared about an object-oriented assembler.
The Decline of Turbo Assembler
Despite early success, popularity for TASM waned in the mid to late 90s largely because developers had begun
to shift away from assembler programming in general, utilizing easier and quicker programming languages that
hid the sometimes "ugly" details of coding directly to specific processors. However, it is my opinion
that popularity specifically for TASM (over MASM) declined for two reasons:
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TASM never fully supported the MASM 6.x Syntax:
TASM entered the market supporting all of MASM's syntaxes and strange behaviors (known by TASM as
"QUIRKS"). To offer developers the no-risk option to switch to a cheaper and faster assembler
without having to change their source code was huge. Prior to MASM 6.0, TASM was
clearly superior not only in speed, but in syntax and affordability.
Borland included some rather humorous remarks in the TASM User's Guides regarding MASM, especially
in the explanation for features such as "QUIRKS mode" and the "NOSMART" directive to enable building
questionable MASM source files:
If you are having trouble assembling a program with Turbo Assembler, you might try using the QUIRKS directive (which enables potentially troublesome features of MASM)
...
For maximum compatibility with MASM, you should use the NOSMART directive along with QUIRKS mode.
With all of MASM's problems, Microsoft eventually did deliver a better assembler in version 6.0.
This was about 2 months after the release of TASM version 2.5. In reality, the combined MASM 6.0
and 6.1 releases finally brought MASM up to the level TASM has been at for years as it addressed all
the problems that TASM's IDEAL mode had "fixed". Many people had the opinion that MASM was finally
equivalent to TASM, give or take some modifications to the to syntaxes. And, 4 years later with the
release of 6.11d (MASM's last DOS assembler), the MASM 6.x series had stabilized into a rock-solid
assembler that was faster with a more elegant syntax. TASM still did not support any of its new
syntax.
Borland may have felt that because their assembler had been superior in the past, there was nothing
left for them to prove; or perhaps they wanted to stop trying to be like MASM? Whatever they were
thinking, something changed their mind. Nearly 5 years later with the release of TASM 5.0, the MASM
6.x syntax was finally supported. But, because TASM's implementation of the syntax never approached
the near-100% compatibility they had become famous for in the past, this feature may have been too
little, too late. MASM compatibility remained for the pre-6.x syntaxes, but those were becoming
obsolete.
MASM compatibility was important for TASM because Microsoft had an advantage over its competitors.
Microsoft made the operating systems everyone was developing applications for. Anything Microsoft
released (whether copied from competitors, or bought from them) would be considered "standard" by a
large portion of the market. People would want to learn and develop in Microsoft's standard syntax
simply because it came from Microsoft. To underestimate the importance of supporting MASM syntax to
its fullest was a mistake on Borland's part.
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Borland's Employee Mass-Exodus:
Within months after releasing the TASM 5.0r patch, Borland filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for
"systematically recruiting Borland developers in an attempt to eliminate the company as a
competitor" as quoted from the May 12, 1997 Network World article (below). According to the
complaint, Microsoft's recruiting efforts began back in 1994. A ComputerWorld article (below)
quoted Borland CEO, Delbert Yocam as saying, "...Microsoft lured away Borland employees with hefty
signing bonuses, and recruited them by sending limousines to Borland headquarters and taking them
out to lunch." This was likely the fatal blow from which Borland would never recover. You could
almost speculate that Borland lost the developer(s) who maintained TASM to Microsoft, just as
Borland's Chief Engineer,
Anders_Hejlsberg
(inventor of Turbo Pascal and chief architect for Delphi) also defected to Microsoft in 1996.
Article: Borland fights big brain suck NetworkWorld - May 12, 1997 |
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Article: Borland says Microsoft raided staff ComputerWorld - May 12, 1997 |
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In all fairness, I'll mention that prior to Microsoft hiring all of Borland's employees, Borland did indeed
hire an ex-Microsoft Languages manager, Rob Dickerson, in 1988. Microsoft attempted, but failed to enforce
their non-complete policy in court and both sides settled out of court with Dickerson ultimately being able
to work for Borland. The article goes on to say, "As part of the settlement, both companies agreed they
will not hire an employee from each other for the next six months." Microsoft gave Borland about 6 years
before it began hiring its employees away.
Article: Microsoft-Borland scuffle could open exit door ComputerWorld - Jan 11, 1988 |
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Although Borland may have drawn first-blood by hiring a manager that quit Microsoft, it is quite a
different thing to have Microsoft systematically "gut" all of Borland's employees. This is one
example of many anti-competitive practices Microsoft was involved with, eventually catching the
attention of the US Department of Justice.
Article: Justice Department versus Microsoft NetworkWorld - May 25, 1998 |
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Although TASM 5.0 now supported some of the high-level language features present in the MASM 6.1 syntax, the
changes needed to assemble a MASM 6.x source file with TASM 5.0 were slightly more involved than people were
interested in performing. That didn't mean TASM 5.0 was necessarily a "dud", but many expressed disappointment.
Tomcat's Win32Asm Document said
the following:
When Borland announced the brand new TASM 5.0 in March 96, I rushed my order,
thinking it would solve most of the remaining problems I had with MASM (like
TASM had done in the past). Unfortunately, it turned out to be different: TASM,
that once used to be more compatible with MASM than MASM itself, now fails to
fully support a number of the new MASM capabilities that appeared with MASM
6.10. Several of these being features that make programming to Win32 much
easier, I regretfully had to go the MASM way rather than the Borland one.
Also around this time, Borland seemed to be going through an identity crisis. It decided to move away from
low-level development tools (including TASM and Borland C++), shifting focus to what it referred to
as "Enterprise" applications. This seemed to translate to database technology combined with rapid
application development (WYSIWYG) tools. This was around the time C++Builder was born from Delphi. At
least the database focus would seem to place Borland in a good position to aid the larger businesses that
were forced to upgrade their "ancient" database technology in response to imminent Y2K problems. Perhaps
even more importantly, "Enterprise" level databases were not already a market dominated by Microsoft.
As part of the new company focus, Borland changed its name to Inprise on April 29, 1998. As the
company's CEO Delbert Yocam explained, the new name meant “ invoking the enterprise”.
Apparently the enterprise had not been “ invoked” enough, as the name was changed back to
Borland less than 3 years later in January of 2001.
About one year earlier (approximately February 2000), things may have started looking up to the Borland/Inprise employees as
C++Builder 5 was released with some embedded anti-Microsoft easter-eggs. One might gather from looking at the images that they were
not only fighting a war with Microsoft, but they were also winning thanks to a creature known as "Borzilla" representing Borland/Inprise.
The employees were obviously fans of the vintage arcade classic "Rampage" where you control Godzilla-looking creatures to destroy cities.
The most notable images are the Linux & Borzilla vs. Seattle (where Microsoft is located) and Borzilla eating
Bill Gates. The remainder of the images and easter-egg details can be found in the
TASM 5.3 section.
Anti-Microsoft Easter Eggs in C++Builder 5 |
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After years of obvious struggling, Borland's development tools division (named CodeGear at the time)
was sold off to Embarcadero Technologies on May 7, 2008 shortly before Borland was
acquired by Micro Focus on May 6, 2009.
As for the future of TASM, 5.0 was the last version distributed as a stand-alone retail product. Shortly
after, the 5.0r patch was released to make TASM compatible with C++Builder. The future for TASM32.EXE would
be to stick it in a "bin" directory with a plethora of other command line tools bundled in the C++Builder
Professional (and greater) editions. TASM 5.2b was bundled with C++Builder 3 just
before Borland changed its name to Inprise. 5.2b finalized the the MMX instruction set, added some Pentium
Pro support and fixed some bugs. TASM 5.2 would be released 1 year later with C++Builder 4, adding the
remainder of the Pentium Pro instructions and marking the last version of TASM with new features. TASM 5.3
was bundled with C++Builder 5 and fixed a few more bugs likely marking the last version of TASM with any changes.
Beyond this, Turbo Assembler was essentially a defunct product. In 2006, C++Builder and Delphi were merged
into the same development environment called Borland Developer Studio (later renamed to RAD Studio around
the time Borland sold its CodeGear tools division to Embarcadero). All of these development environments,
including the free trial versions, bundle a copy of TASM 5.4 which seemed to only have name and version
number changes.
The lack of keeping TASM current sent a clear message to the developer community that TASM was no longer a
product being actively maintained and developed. Despite this, many stuck with TASM well into the turn of
the century. But, with Microsoft supplying MASM for free with every version of Visual C++ released starting
with the 6.0 Processor Pack, there became little reason not to use the actively developed and supported MASM
with the latest processor support.
If you don't require support for Ideal Mode, the assembler development community seems to recommend MASM the
most as it supports all current instruction sets and its still being maintained by Microsoft.
Even the most die hard TASM developers eventually switched to MASM or another assembler that was being
actively maintained.
Despite TASM not keeping up with the times, there does appear to be a maintained list list of open/closed
bugs that can be viewed on
Embarcadero's QualityCentral
site. Unfortunately, (as of 2015) these only include two SSE feature requests, one for SSE (released by
Intel for the Pentium III in 1999) and SSE3 (released by Intel in 2004) which have yet to be implemented.
The other open bug is in regards to a nested structure's member names clashing with the names of the
structures themselves. As you can tell, not a whole lot of activity going on here.
Other Compatible Assemblers
It appears that there is only one true Turbo Assembler clone - a free product named
Lazy Assembler (LZASM).
Lazy Assembler also supports instruction sets never available with TASM:
SSE, SSE2, SSE3 (PNI), SSE4 (MNI), and 3DNow! Pro. The last version came out in 2007 and the
original website is gone. The project appears to be dead.
In 1999 Paradigm Systems released Paradigm Assembler (PASM), known by many as a Turbo Assembler clone based
upon Borland's version 5.0. According to a 2010 blog on
MASM Forum,
Paradigm Systems licensed Turbo Assembler 5.0 from Borland/Inprise and bundled it with the Paradigm C++ product.
PASM was reverse-engineered just enough to reveal it was nothing more than a loader with TASM32.EXE
embedded. Upon execution, it was claimed that it would extract TASM32.EXE to a temporary directory and execute it to perform
the actual assembler work.
I have been able to verify this claim: PASM32.EXE first calls a function within their own ADMIN.DLL (as all
of their utilities do) to ensure Paradigm's proprietary dongle exists; upon success a file named PASM32.DLL is
extracted (with system and hidden attributes applied); PASM32.DLL, not really a DLL but internally an EXE, is then
launched to do the assembler work, and then the file is deleted. This PASM32.DLL is actually the TASM32.EXE claimed (albeit
modified). At the very least, the string literals have been changed to "Paradigm Assembler", however
like TASM32, the TURBOASSEMBLER constant continues to exist in the module's DATA segment. The file weighs
in at 178k which is less than TASM 5.0 and 5.0r (at 180k and 184k respectively), so Paradigm likely received
from Borland a full build environment from which to fully tailor the TASM codebase to suit their purpose.
Had Paradigm actually authored the assembler, it is likely the dongle protection would have been built directly
into the EXE rather than the roundabout method they employed to extract the real tool.
It should come as no surprise that the Paradigm Assembler manual is close to an exact copy of the Borland
Turbo Assembler 5.0 User's Guide, literally word-for-word with minor modifications.
The only differences appear to be that they replaced all occurrences of
"Turbo Assembler" with "Paradigm Assembler", "Borland C++" with "Paradigm C++", swapped out the sample in
chapter #1 with their own and removed the introduction at the front of the book. Because no good quality
digital reproduction of the official Turbo Assembler 5.0 User's Guide was available at the time, the
Paradigm Assembler PDF manual, known for its small size and searchability became distributed among the
Internet for TASM developers and can still be found on various sites today. The easiest place to find it
is on the Phat Code website; either from their
Lazy Assembler page or
embedded within the TASM 5.0 download on its
Turbo Assembler 5 page.
A "clone" in the context of computer software generally means a different program that acts like or emulates
the behavior of another to a high degree. Paradigm Assembler is not a TASM clone because it internally uses
TASM and is therefore not a different program.
All of this might lead one to believe Paradigm C++ might also be a licensed copy/modification of Borland's C++.
As a side-note, a complete and fully searchable PDF copy of the official Turbo Assembler 5.0 User's Guide is now
available on
archive.org
(about 14MB), courtesy of the bitsavers.org scan collection.
Although not a clone, the free and actively maintained Netwide Assembler (NASM) for 16/32/64-bit development supporting
Windows, Unix/Linux, and even DOS and OS/2 has the -t command-line option for "TASM
Compatibility Mode". It is described in the
NASM Documentation as:
NASM includes a limited form of compatibility with Borland's TASM. When NASM's -t option is used, the
following changes are made:
- local labels may be prefixed with @@ instead of .
- size override is supported within brackets. In TASM compatible mode, a size override inside square
brackets changes the size of the operand, and not the address type of the operand as it does in NASM
syntax. E.g. mov eax,[DWORD val] is valid syntax in TASM compatibility mode. Note that you lose the
ability to override the default address type for the instruction.
- unprefixed forms of some directives supported (arg, elif, else, endif, if, ifdef, ifdifi, ifndef,
include, local)
Turbo Assembler Printed Manuals
With each new version, the Turbo Assembler official documentation provided less and less
information. This trend was similar with MASM. It was almost as if as the product matured, the new
features were added on an ad-hoc basis known to the large companies in the industry (such as low level
hardware, chip and BIOS manufacturers) that may have requested the "features", but time and resources in
properly documenting this information to the public was not devoted. It is likely that an
assembler being such a low-level "backend" tool just didn't have the public visibility to justify the means.
Observe the declining number of pages in the TASM printed manuals throughout the years, even as each new
version had more features than the previous one:
TASM 1.0 User's Guide | / 1988 / | 572 pages |
TASM 2.0 User's Guide | / 1990 / | 503 pages | (69 pages dropped) |
TASM 3.0 User's Guide | / 1991 / | 381 pages | (122 pages dropped) |
TASM 4.0 User's Guide | / 1993 / | 347 pages | (34 pages dropped) |
TASM 5.0 User's Guide | / 1996 / | 290 pages | (57 pages dropped) |
Therefore, the purpose of this page is to document what changed between each version even as official
information became more and more limited. Before changes stopped being documented altogether in the
post-Borland years, the Turbo Assembler manuals usually just added a chapter or section explaining the new
features but didn't mention that the feature(s) were "new". Starting with the 3.0 User's Guide, an appendix
was added at the end with keywords new to each version up to the current manual's version. As I leveraged
this information as part of building the changelist information, I found that Borland was extremely sloppy
in preparing these lists. If you have access to one of these manuals and you compare it to the changelist
information compiled on this site, you'll find the information in the manuals grossly underestimated what
was actually added to each version! Not only were the lists incomplete with every version, many keywords
were incorrectly placed and some of the keywords were flat out wrong, either because no such keyword
actually existed or a couple instances where multiple keywords were "glued" together as one keyword! No
only that, but many "new" keywords in these lists were never described in the manual! It was also sad to
note that the last User's Guide (version 5.0) was missing updated information for 32-bit Windows application
development.
An Official Yet Unofficial IDE
Many may be surprised to learn that the version 7 Turbo Pascal and Borland Pascal IDE's,
possibly the Borland C++ IDE too, had such a surprising level of TASM integration, some may have considered them
the unofficial IDE for TASM. Unofficial because a program's entry point still required a language other
than assembly.
Beyond simply spawning TASM during the build process, these IDE's included some valuable source and debugging features.
For example, when TASM reports build errors, the IDE positions the cursor at the first error line in the source code,
with the option to visit all lines containing errors.
When single-step debugging finds its way into a linked TASM module, the corresponding .ASM source appears and current
assembly line hilighted.
Assembly-level debugging features included tracing, setting breakpoints (both absolute and conditional), variable watch,
register inspection, and even spawning TASM to re-assemble during debugging (if the source was changed).
Courtesy Jim from oldskool.org for this section's information and screenshots below:
Pascal program loading external OBJ (note the $L directive) |
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In-line assembler, single-stepping up to external object call |
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During Trace, IDE loads TASM source |
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Turbo Assembler books
Besides the official Borland manuals, there were not as many books dedicated to TASM.
Books dedicated to MASM however were more plentiful.
Most of the these TASM books were written pre-version 3.0 and even then there were only a handful.
The Turbo Assembler Bible was one of them, designed for TASM 2.0. Because a lot has changed since TASM 2.0
(and other assemblers since the TASM 2.0 release in 1990) it is considered primitive even for 16-bit
programming. This combined with the fact that the bulk of the book is reference material that can be found
elsewhere, this book's primary significance is historical (and it has a neat pirate picture on the cover!).
Although these pre-version 3.0 books may delve a bit into TASM's IDEAL mode syntax, they didn't cover the
object-oriented features
unique to TASM that were added in version 3.0. But, there was one book that came out in 1989 followed by a
second (and final) edition published 1995 that will forever be known as the definitive guide to TASM.
Although it only covers through version 4.0, the book, "Mastering Turbo Assembler" delves into just about
every TASM detail known. This book was written by Tom Swan, one of the best computer book authors of the
80s-early 90s computer era (also the author of the widely successful and definitive "Masting Turbo Pascal
x.x" series). The assembler code shown in the book was almost exclusively in IDEAL mode and it is one of the
only books that covers the object oriented features of TASM. In fact, this tome of 908 pages is a better
reference than the official Borland manuals themselves, especially since Swan leveraged the assistance of
Borland employees to write the book! Although the 2nd edition only covered TASM through version 4.0, the
TASM 5.x changes that came after it was published only made TASM more MASM-compatible which wouldn't have
been covered by this book anyway. Therefore, this book continues to be relevant to the TASM distributed by
Embarcadero today.
Mastering Turbo Assembler (1st Edition) © 1989, Tom Swan 695 Pages |
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Mastering Turbo Assembler (2nd Edition) © 1995, Tom Swan 908 Pages |
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The Waite Group's Turbo Assembler Bible © 1991, Gary Syck / 717 Pages |
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The only other book I know of that deals with the features of modern (post-3.0) TASM is
"Windows Assembly Language and Systems Programming" 2nd edition by Barry Kauler.
While this book goes into details about the differences
between MASM and TASM, Kauler prefers TASM over MASM and therefore most of the code in the book follows
suit. Kauler also devotes an entire chapter (about 42 pages) delving into the object-oriented nature of
programming in assembly language which you really won't find in any other book. Most books (typically in
the field of reverse engineering) will discuss how certain snippets of object-oriented C++ code disassembles
into corresponding assembly language, but Kauler illustrates a unique view. He shows how one might use an
object oriented assembler like TASM to implement objects in a pure assembly language without any constraints
that would be placed upon a compiler (such where the VTABLE might go: common to the class or per object
instance). Although he does use TASM-specific keywords such as the TABLE directive, his code for the most
part is fairly generic assembler that could be easily ported to MASM or other assemblers. Besides the TASM
specifics, I highly recommend this book despite the large focus on 16-bit Windows 3.1 and Windows 95
programming. There is little doubt that 16-bit programming is dead in the world, but I think it would do
any serious assembly language programmer some good to have general knowledge of the convoluted nature of
16-bit hardware implementation. 16-bit x86 programming, a scheme born out of limited resources and
backwards compatibility is harder than 32-bit programming and takes some serious skill to master. 16-bit
code is not completely gone as it is still used in BIOS and low level processes such as bootloaders. This is
true even on PCs that will ultimately boot a 32-bit or even 64-bit protected mode operating system. In my
opinion, this book gave the clearest and most detailed explanation of what is really going on with the
processor and memory from when you hit the power switch, to when DOS loads (Pre Windows 2000/XP that is), to
when Windows loads, the different processor modes (real mode, virtual 86 mode, protected mode), what
descriptors are and their layouts, as well as how segments address memory with 20-bits, etc. For those that
use the 32-bit FLAT model for assembly language programs, there are 16-bit artifacts in that architecture
and its good to know these roots! Additionally, this is also one of the only books I know of that explains
the inner workings of how you can drop from user mode (ring 3) in a protected mode program down to kernel
mode (ring 0) using call-gates.
Windows Assembly Language and Systems
Programming
16- and 32-Bit Low-Level Programming for the PC and Windows (2nd Edition) © 1997, Barry Kauler / 419 Pages |
The books described above (as well as the Turbo Assembler software itself) are unofficially classified by
the world as obsolete software for obsolete operating systems with no economic value. Soon, they may be
sought-after vintage collectibles, but not while there are such large numbers remaining in circulation. I
say grab them while you can off of Amazon or eBay for pennies on the dollar because these books are
generally cheaper than the cost to ship them. If you don't mind paying a little more, you can usually get
them in near-mint condition!
Turbo Assembler Versioning
It is interesting to note that embedded within the binary executable of each version of TASM is the following string:
??version equ xx*256+yy
This appears to be the internal definition for TASM's ??version macro, utilizing internal major and minor
version numbers xx and yy respectively. This formula stores the major version in the upper byte and the
minor version in the lower byte of what was likely intended as a 16-bit version number. This explains
why the reported ??version numbers (shown in the table below) are generally large powers of two.
I have attempted obtain the most complete version information for Borland's TASM throughout its history
using official information where available and falling back to bits and pieces from other sources when
information is limited. This includes printed manuals, readme's and other information shipping with the
product, or official websites. When appropriate, opinions and hearsay are also included (and noted as
such), as this helps develop a clearer picture of how the product impacted those who used it.
2018-12-08 * added section (at top) "An Official Yet Unofficial IDE"
2017-03-20 * added TASM version 2.01; reworked version 2.02 in light of the previously unknown 2.01 version
causing some features originally attributed to 2.02 to move to 2.01
* found and added new undocumented error message to TASM 2.02 I previously missed
2016-09-15 * added C++Builder 5 and 6 easter-egg images to the TASM 5.3 image group; also referenced 2 of the images
and added a blurb about the anti-Microsoft easter-eggs in the intro's history section; updated official
file date for TASM 5.3 to reflect confirmed date on C++Builder 5 CD.
2016-09-08 * revisions made to TASM 5.2 and TASM 5.3 summaries now that I could confirm the contents of C++Builder 5
and 6; pictures of C++Builder 5 and 6 were added to the TASM 5.3 section
Version | Copyright | Runs Under | Main Program Date/File/Size | ??version | Version Decoded |
TASM 1.0 | 1988 | | 08/29/1988 01:00am | TASM.EXE | 97,876 bytes / 96 k | 256 | xx=1 yy=0 |
TASM 1.01 | 1989 | | 05/02/1989 01:01am | TASM.EXE | 95,910 bytes / 94 k | 257 | xx=1 yy=1 |
TASM 2.0 | 1990 | | 05/07/1990 02:00am | TASM.EXE | 105,881 bytes / 103 k | 512 | xx=2 yy=0 |
TASM 2.01 | 1990 | | 10/29/1990 02:01am | TASM.EXE | 105,651 bytes / 103 k | 513 | xx=2 yy=1 |
TASM 2.02 | 1990 | | 03/13/1991 03:02am | TASM.EXE | 71,283 bytes / 70 k | 514 | xx=2 yy=2 |
TASM 2.5 | 1991 | | 02/13/1991 02:00am | TASM.EXE | 106,521 bytes / 104 k | 517 | xx=2 yy=5 |
TASM 2.51 | 1991 | | | TASM.EXE | 106,521 bytes / 104 k | 517 | xx=2 yy=5 |
TASM 3.0 | 1991 | | 11/11/1991 04:00am | TASM.EXE | 115,471 bytes / 113 k | 768 | xx=3 yy=0 |
TASM 3.1 | 1992 | | 06/10/1992 03:10am | TASM.EXE | 129,266 bytes / 126 k | 778 | xx=3 yy=10 |
TASM 3.2i | 1992 | | 10/01/1992 07:00am | TASM.EXE | 133,698 bytes / 131 k | 788 | xx=3 yy=20 |
TASM 3.2 | 1992 | | 03/09/1993 07:01am | TASM.EXE | 133,580 bytes / 130 k | 788 | xx=3 yy=20 |
TASM 4.0 | 1993 | | 12/01/1993 04:00am | TASM32.EXE | 163,840 bytes / 160 k | 1024 | xx=4 yy=0 |
TASM 4.1 | 1996 | | 02/15/1994 06:33pm | TASM32.EXE | 163,840 bytes / 160 k | 1034 | xx=4 yy=10 |
TASM 5.0 | 1996 | | 02/21/1996 05:00am | TASM32.EXE | 184,320 bytes / 180 k | 1280 | xx=5 yy=0 |
TASM 5.0r | 1996 | | 02/05/1997 01:00am | TASM32.EXE | 188,416 bytes / 184 k | 1280 | xx=5 yy=0 |
TASM 5.2b | 1996 | | 02/09/1998 03:00am | tasm32.exe | 188,416 bytes / 184 k | 1282 | xx=5 yy=2 |
TASM 5.2 | 1999 | | 01/27/1999 04:00am | TASM32.EXE | 188,416 bytes / 184 k | 1282 | xx=5 yy=2 |
TASM 5.3 | 2000 | | 01/30/2000 10:00pm | TASM32.EXE | 188,416 bytes / 184 k | 1283 | xx=5 yy=3 |
TASM 5.4 | 2009 | | 01/14/2009 12:03pm | tasm32.exe | 188,416 bytes / 184 k | 1284 | xx=5 yy=4 |
TASM 5.4 | 2010 | | 12/07/2013 04:55pm | tasm32.exe | 194,936 bytes / 190 k | 1284 | xx=5 yy=4 |
Keyword | Version |
BYTE | |
DB | |
DD | |
DF | |
DP | |
DQ | |
DT | |
DW | |
DWORD | |
ENDS | |
ENUM | 3.0 |
FWORD | |
LABEL | |
PROCTYPE | 3.2i |
QWORD | |
REAL10 | 5.0 |
REAL4 | 5.0 |
REAL8 | 5.0 |
RECORD | |
SBYTE | 5.0 |
SDWORD | 5.0 |
STRUC | |
STRUCT | 5.0 |
SWORD | 5.0 |
TABLE | 3.0 |
TBLINIT | 3.0 |
TBLINST | 3.0 |
TBLPTR | 3.0 |
TBYTE | |
TYPEDEF | 3.0 |
UNION | |
WORD | |
|
Keyword | Version |
.186 | |
.286 | |
.286c | |
.286p | |
.386 | |
.386c | |
.386p | |
.387 | |
.486 | 2.0 |
.486c | 2.0 |
.486p | 2.0 |
.487 | 3.1 |
.586 | 4.0 |
.586C | 4.0 |
.586P | 4.0 |
.587 | 4.0 |
.686 | 5.2b |
.686C | 5.2b |
.686P | 5.2b |
.687 | 5.2b |
.8086 | |
.8087 | |
EMUL | |
.MMX | 5.2b |
NOEMUL | |
.NOMMX | 5.2b |
P186 | |
P286 | |
P286N | |
P287 | |
P386 | |
P386N | |
P387 | |
P486 | 2.0 |
P486N | 2.0 |
P487 | 3.1 |
P586 | 4.0 |
P586N | 4.0 |
P587 | 4.0 |
P686 | 5.2b |
P686N | 5.2b |
P687 | 5.2b |
P8086 | |
P8087 | |
PMMX | 5.0r |
PNO87 | |
PNOMMX | 5.0r |
|
Keyword | Version |
ALIGN | |
.ALPHA | |
ASSUME | |
.CODE | |
CODESEG | |
.CONST | |
CONST | |
.DATA | |
.DATA? | |
DATASEG | |
.DOSSEG | 5.0 |
DOSSEG | |
END | |
ENDS | |
EVEN | |
EVENDATA | |
.EXIT | 3.0 |
EXIT | 3.0 |
EXITCODE | 3.0 |
.FARDATA? | |
.FARDATA | |
FARDATA | |
GROUP | |
LABEL | |
LARGESTACK | 3.0 |
.MODEL | |
MODEL | |
ORG | |
SEGMENT | |
.SEQ | |
SMALLSTACK | 3.0 |
.STACK | |
STACKALIGN | 4.1 |
STACKUNALIGN | 4.1 |
.STARTUP | 2.0 |
STARTUPCODE | 2.0 |
UDATASEG | |
UFARDATA | |
|
Keyword | Version |
ARG | |
CALL (high-level) | 2.0 |
ENDM | |
ENDP | |
EXITM | |
FAR16 | 5.0 |
FAR32 | 5.0 |
GOTO | 3.0 |
LOCAL | |
LOCALS | |
MACRO | |
METHOD | 3.0 |
NEAR16 | 5.0 |
NEAR32 | 5.0 |
NOLOCAL | |
PROC | |
PROCDESC | 3.2i |
PROTO | 5.0 |
PURGE | |
REQ | 3.0 |
REST | 3.0 |
RETURNS | |
USES | |
VARARG | 3.0 |
|
Keyword | Version |
ALIAS | 4.0 |
COMM | 2.0 |
COMMENT | |
EXTERN | 5.0 |
EXTERNDEF | 5.0 |
EXTRN | |
GLOBAL | |
INCLUDE | |
INCLUDELIB | |
NAME | |
PUBLIC | |
PUBLICDLL | 1.01 |
|
Keyword | Version |
ALL | 5.0 |
CASEMAP | 5.0 |
DOTNAME | 5.0 |
EMULATOR | 5.0 |
EPILOGUE | 5.0 |
EXPORT | 5.0 |
EXPR16 | 5.0 |
EXPR32 | 5.0 |
IDEAL | |
JUMPS | |
LANGUAGE | 5.0 |
LJMP | 5.0 |
M510 | 5.0 |
MASM | |
MULTERRS | |
NODOTNAME | 5.0 |
NOEMULATOR | 5.0 |
NOJUMPS | |
NOKEYWORD | 5.0 |
NOLJMP | 5.0 |
NOM510 | 5.0 |
NOMULTERRS | |
NONE | 5.0 |
NOOLDMACROS | 5.0 |
NOOLDSTRUCTS | 5.0 |
NOREADONLY | 5.0 |
NOSCOPED | 5.0 |
NOSIGNEXTEND | 5.0 |
NOSMART | |
NOTPUBLIC | 5.0 |
NOWARN | |
OFFSET | 5.0 |
OLDMACROS | 5.0 |
OLDSTRUCTS | 5.0 |
OPTION | 5.0 |
POPSTATE | 3.1 |
PRIVATE | 5.0 |
PROC | 5.0 |
PROLOGUE | 5.0 |
PUBLIC | 5.0 |
PUSHSTATE | 3.1 |
QUIRKS | |
RADIX | |
.RADIX | |
READONLY | 5.0 |
SCOPED | 5.0 |
SEGMENT | 5.0 |
SETIF2 | 5.0 |
SMART | |
VERSION | 3.0 |
WARN | |
|
Keyword | Version |
CATSTR | |
INSTR | |
SIZESTR | |
SUBSTR | |
|
Keyword | Version |
= | |
EQU | |
TEXTEQU | 5.0 |
|
Keyword | Version |
ENDM | |
FOR | 5.0 |
FORC | 5.0 |
GOTO | 3.0 |
IRP | |
IRPC | |
REPEAT | 5.0 |
REPT | |
WHILE | 3.0 |
|
Keyword | Version |
ELSE | |
ELSEIF | |
ELSEIF1 | |
ELSEIF2 | |
ELSEIFB | |
ELSEIFDEF | |
ELSEIFDIF | |
ELSEIFDIFI | |
ELSEIFE | |
ELSEIFIDN | |
ELSEIFIDNI | |
ELSEIFNB | |
ELSEIFNDEF | |
ENDIF | |
IF | |
IF1 | |
IF2 | |
IFB | |
IFDEF | |
IFDIF | |
IFDIFI | |
IFE | |
IFIDN | |
IFIDNI | |
IFNB | |
IFNDEF | |
|
Keyword | Version |
.BREAK | 5.0 |
.CONTINUE | 5.0 |
DUP | |
.ELSE | 5.0 |
.ELSEIF | 5.0 |
.ENDIF | 5.0 |
.ENDW | 5.0 |
.IF | 5.0 |
.REPEAT | 5.0 |
.UNTIL | 5.0 |
.UNTILCXZ | 5.0 |
.WHILE | 5.0 |
|
Keyword | Version |
.ERR | |
ERR | |
.ERR1 | |
.ERR2 | |
.ERRB | |
.ERRDEF | |
.ERRDIF | |
.ERRDIFI | |
.ERRE | |
.ERRIDN | |
.ERRIDNI | |
ERRIF | |
ERRIF1 | |
ERRIF2 | |
ERRIFB | |
ERRIFDEF | |
ERRIFDIF | |
ERRIFDIFI | |
ERRIFE | |
ERRIFIDN | |
ERRIFIDNI | |
ERRIFNB | |
ERRIFNDEF | |
.ERRNB | |
.ERRNDEF | |
.ERRNZ | |
|
Keyword | Version |
%BIN | |
%CONDS | |
.CREF | |
%CREF | |
%CREFALL | |
%CREFREF | |
%CREFUREF | |
%CTLS | |
%DEPTH | |
.LALL | |
.LFCOND | |
%LINUM | |
%LIST | |
.LIST | |
.LISTALL | 5.0 |
.LISTIF | 5.0 |
.LISTMACRO | 5.0 |
.LISTMACROALL | 5.0 |
%MACS | |
%NOCONDS | |
.NOCREF | 5.0 |
%NOCREF | |
%NOCTLS | |
.NOLIST | 5.0 |
%NOLIST | |
.NOLISTIF | 5.0 |
.NOLISTMACRO | 5.0 |
%NOMACS | |
%NOSYMS | |
%NOTRUNC | |
PAGE | |
%PAGESIZE | |
%PCNT | |
%POPLCTL | |
%PUSHLCTL | |
.SALL | |
.SFCOND | |
.SUBTITLE | 5.0 |
SUBTTL | |
%SUBTTL | |
%SYMS | |
%TABSIZE | |
%TEXT | |
.TFCOND | |
TITLE | |
%TITLE | |
%TRUNC | |
.XALL | |
.XCREF | |
.XLIST | |
|
Keyword | Version |
DISPLAY | |
ECHO | 5.0 |
NOWARN | |
%OUT | |
WARN | |
|
Keyword | Version |
FASTIMUL | 3.0 |
|
Keyword | Version |
ALN - Segment alignment | |
ASS - Assuming segment is 16-bit | |
BRK - Brackets needed | |
GTP - Global type doesn't match symbol type | 2.0 |
ICG - Inefficient code generation | |
INT - INT 3 generation | 3.1 |
LCO - Location counter overflow | |
MCP - MASM compatibility pass | 2.0 |
OPI - Open IF conditional | |
OPP - Open procedure | |
OPS - Open segment | |
OVF - Arithmetic overflow | |
PDC - Pass-dependent construction | |
PQK - Assuming constant for [const] warning | |
PRO - Write-to-memory in protected mode using CS | |
RES - Reserved word warning | |
TPI - Borland Pascal illegal warning | |
UNI - For turning off uninitialized segment warning | 3.1 |
|
Keyword | Version |
" | |
"" | |
' | |
'' | |
() | |
. | |
: | |
:: | |
; | |
[] | |
FAR | |
HIGH | |
LARGE | |
LENGTH | |
LOW | |
MASK | |
NEAR | |
OFFSET | |
PTR | |
SEG | |
SHORT | |
SIZE | |
SMALL | |
SYMTYPE | |
THIS | |
.TYPE | |
TYPE | |
WIDTH | |
|
Keyword | Version |
* | |
+ | |
- | |
. | |
/ | |
AND | |
MOD | |
NOT | |
OR | |
SHL | |
SHR | |
XOR | |
|
Keyword | Version |
! | 5.0 |
!= | 5.0 |
& | 5.0 |
&& | 5.0 |
< | 5.0 |
<= | 5.0 |
== | 5.0 |
> | 5.0 |
>= | 5.0 |
CARRY? | 5.0 |
OVERFLOW? | 5.0 |
PARITY? | 5.0 |
SIGN? | 5.0 |
ZERO? | 5.0 |
|| | 5.0 |
|
Keyword | Version |
EQ | |
GE | |
GT | |
LE | |
LT | |
NE | |
|
Keyword | Version |
! | |
% | |
& | |
;; | |
<> | |
|
Keyword | Version |
ASSEMBLER | 1.x (renamed to NOLANGUAGE in 2.0) |
BASIC | |
C | |
CPP | 3.0 |
FORTRAN | |
NOLANGUAGE | 2.0 |
PASCAL | |
PROLOG | |
STDCALL | 3.2i |
SYSCALL | 3.0 |
|
Keyword | Version |
COMPACT | |
FLAT | 3.0 |
HUGE | |
LARGE | |
MEDIUM | |
SMALL | |
TCHUGE | 2.02 |
TINY | |
TPASCAL | |
|
Keyword | Version |
DOS | 3.0 |
FARSTACK | 2.0 |
NEARSTACK | 2.0 |
NORMAL | 2.0 |
NT | 4.0 |
ODDFAR | 2.0 |
ODDNEAR | 2.0 |
OS2 | 3.0 |
OS_DOS | 3.0 |
OS_NT | 4.0 |
OS_OS2 | 3.0 |
USE16 | |
USE32 | |
WINDOWS | 2.0 |
|
Keyword | Version |
AT | |
BYTE | |
COMMON | |
DWORD | |
EXECONLY | 2.02 |
EXECREAD | 2.02 |
MEMORY | |
MEMPAGE | 2.02 |
PAGE | |
PARA | |
PRIVATE | |
PUBLIC | |
READONLY | 2.02 |
READWRITE | 2.02 |
UNINIT | 3.1 |
VIRTUAL | 2.0 |
WORD | |
|
Keyword | Version |
M400 | 3.0 |
M500 | 3.0 |
M510 | 3.0 |
M520 | 3.0 |
M611 | 5.0 |
T100 | 3.0 |
T101 | 3.0 |
T200 | 3.0 |
T250 | 3.0 |
T300 | 3.0 |
T310 | 3.1 |
T320 | 3.2i |
T321 | 4.0 |
T400 | 4.0 |
T410 | 5.0 |
T450 | 5.0 |
T500 | 5.0 |
T510 | 5.0r |
T520 | 5.2b |
|
Keyword | Version |
@32Bit | 3.0 |
@code | |
@CodeSize | |
@curseg | |
@data | |
@DataSize | |
@fardata | |
@fardata? | |
@Model | 2.0 |
@Mptr_<objectname> | 3.0 |
@Object | 3.0 |
@stack | 3.0 |
@TableAddr_<objectname> | 3.0 |
@Table_<objectname> | 3.0 |
@WordSize | |
|
Keyword | Version |
@Cpu | |
@FileName | |
@Interface | 3.0 |
|
Keyword | Version |
??date | |
??filename | |
??time | |
??version | |
|
Keyword | Version |
$ | |
? | |
@@ | 2.0 |
@B | 2.0 |
CODEPTR | 2.0 |
DATAPTR | |
@F | 2.0 |
NOTHING | |
@Startup | 2.0 |
UNKNOWN | |
|
Keyword | Version |
AX | |
BP | |
BX | |
CR2 | |
CR3 | |
CR4 | 4.0 |
CRO | |
CS | |
CX | |
DI | |
DR1 | |
DR2 | |
DR3 | |
DR5 | 4.0 |
DR6 | |
DR7 | |
DRO | |
DS | |
DX | |
EAX | |
EBP | |
EBX | |
ECX | |
EDI | |
EDX | |
ES | |
ESI | |
FS | |
GS | |
MM0 | 5.0r |
MM1 | 5.0r |
MM2 | 5.0r |
MM3 | 5.0r |
MM4 | 5.0r |
MM5 | 5.0r |
MM6 | 5.0r |
MM7 | 5.0r |
SI | |
SS | |
TR3 | 2.0 |
TR4 | 2.0 |
TR5 | 2.0 |
TR6 | |
TR7 | |
|
Keyword | Version |
.186 | |
.286 | |
.286C | |
.286P | |
.287 | |
.386 | |
.386C | |
.386P | |
.387 | |
.486 | 2.0 |
.486C | 2.0 |
.486P | 2.0 |
.487 | 3.1 |
.586 | 4.0 |
.586C | 4.0 |
.586P | 4.0 |
.587 | 4.0 |
.686 | 5.2b |
.686C | 5.2b |
.686P | 5.2b |
.687 | 5.2b |
.8086 | |
.8087 | |
.MMX | 5.2b |
.NOMMX | 5.2b |
.ALPHA | |
.CODE | |
COMMENT | |
.CONST | |
.CREF | |
.DATA | |
.DATA? | |
.ERR | |
.ERR1 | |
.ERR2 | |
.ERRB | |
.ERRDEF | |
.ERRDIF | |
.ERRDIFI | |
.ERRE | |
.ERRIDN | |
.ERRIDNI | |
.ERRNB | |
.ERRNDEF | |
.ERRNZ | |
.FARDATA | |
.FARDATA? | |
.LALL | |
.LFCOND | |
.LIST | |
.MODEL | |
%OUT | |
PAGE | |
.RADIX | |
.SALL | |
.SEQ | |
.SFCOND | |
.STACK | |
SUBTTL | |
.TFCOND | |
TITLE | |
.TYPE ** | |
.XALL | |
.XCREF | |
.XLIST | |
|
Keyword | Version |
P186 | |
P286 | |
P286N | |
P286N | |
P287 | |
P386 | |
P386N | |
P386N | |
P387 | |
P486 | 2.0 |
P486N | 2.0 |
P486N | 2.0 |
P487 | 3.1 |
P586 | 4.0 |
P586N | 4.0 |
P586N | 4.0 |
P587 | 4.0 |
P686 | 5.2b |
P686N | 5.2b |
P686N | 5.2b |
P687 | 5.2b |
P8086 | |
P8087 | |
PMMX | 5.0r |
PNOMMX | 5.0r |
DOSSEG | |
CODESEG | |
(none) | |
CONST | |
%CREF | |
DATASEG | |
UDATASEG | |
ERR | |
ERRIF1 | |
ERRIF2 | |
ERRIFB | |
ERRIFDEF | |
ERRIFDIF | |
ERRIFDIFI | |
ERRIFE | |
ERRIFIDN | |
ERRIFIDNI | |
ERRIFNB | |
ERRIFNDEF | |
ERRIF | |
FARDATA | |
UFARDATA | |
%MACS | |
%CONDS | |
%LIST | |
MODEL | |
DISPLAY | |
%PAGESIZE | |
RADIX | |
%NOMACS | |
(none) * | |
%NOCONDS | |
STACK | |
%SUBTTL | |
(none) | |
%TITLE | |
SYMTYPE ** | |
(none) | |
%NOCREF | |
%NOLIST | |
|
* TASM defaults to collecting segments in sequential order ** .TYPE and SYMTYPE are operators. All other keywords in the table above are directives.
Keyword | Version |
CALLMETHOD (u) | 3.0 |
CALLPROC (u) | 2.0 |
EPILOGUEDEF (u) | 5.0 |
FNLDENV (u) | 4.0 |
FNRSTOR (u) | 4.0 |
JMPMETHOD (u) | 3.0 |
OBJDEF (u) | 3.0 |
OBJEND (u) | 3.0 |
PROCBEG (u) | 3.0 |
PROCEND (u) | 3.0 |
PROLOGUEDEF (u) | 5.0 |
|
|
TASM.EXE | 97,876 bytes (96k) | md5=95874a9aab76526ab263839f4f769da2 | date=8/29/1988 1:00am | | | |
|
??version reports: 256
Retail Price: $149.95
Borland releases their first version of Turbo Assembler (TASM) the month of September 1988
(bundled with the first version of Turbo Debugger) for $149.95. Borland also simultaneously
releases Turbo Pascal 5.0 and Turbo C 2.0. View the
README.
The first version of TASM supported the Intel 8086, 80186, 80286 and 80386 processors along with the
8087, 80287 and 80387 numeric coprocessors. The 80386 (i386) processor, released by Intel in October of 1985,
was the latest processor at the time.
I have seen a distribution of TASM 1.0 with the file dates: 10/31/1988 1:00am. Despite this being nearly two
months after the release date according to the article below, I believe the file dates might still legitimately represent
one in a series of multiple releases of the same version. This is in part due to the updated documentation files that
maintained the same general content, but reworded some sentences and fixed grammatical errors.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
- IBM PC XT, AT, PS/2 or compatible computer
- MS-DOS 2.0 or later
- At least 256K of memory
Article: Borland goes for Code Pros ComputerWorld August 29, 1988 |
|
|
|
Borland Languages Advertisement w/ TASM 1.0 InfoWorld September 9, 1988 |
|
|
|
Article: Turbo Debugger and Turbo Assembler 1.0 InfoWorld September 12, 1988 |
|
|
|
Article: Borland Unveils New Programmers Tools InfoWorld September 22, 1988 |
|
|
|
Article: TASM, Debugger: Innovative Software, Unworthy Documentation PC Magazine November 15, 1988 |
|
|
|
“ The Gloves are Off!”
Shortly after the release of TASM 1.0, Microsoft reacts with a white paper
describing incompatibilities between MASM and TASM.
Article: Borland Disputes Microsoft's Assembler Benchmark Claim InfoWorld - February 6, 1989 |
|
|
TASM.EXE | 95,910 bytes (94k) | md5=c3a968f96540074489d208a934e27a37 | date=5/2/1989 1:01am | | | |
|
??version reports: 257
The changelist below was derived from the README and binary
analysis.
CHANGELIST:
- Listing files generated with /LA will now contain the mnemonics for
the opcodes inserted as a result of the use of high level language
directives. The listing is changed only for things that actually
generate code such as the first instruction of a PROC with arguments.
The listing of things such as .MODEL, .CODE, and other instructions
that do not actually generate any code will not be changed. /LA also
overrides other directives that turn off listing. If certain parts
of listing need to be supressed use /L instead of /LA.
- If a string is defined with a DB instruction, and a comma is the
last thing on the line, a null byte will be assumed at the end of
the string. A warning will be generated. For example:
db 'ABCDEF',
will generate the following, with a warning "Trailing null assumed"
41 42 43 44 45 46 00
- If a structure instance does not have any initializer specified
the "Trailing null assumed" warning will be generated. No extra
zeros are placed in the emitted code.
- Segment alignment and padding now match MASM.
- Confusion about certain features of TYPE used in IDEAL
mode should be cleared up by the following addition to the
manual:
Function Returns a number indicating the size of a symbol
(Masm mode), or returns the type of a symbol
(Ideal mode)
Mode MASM, Ideal
Syntax Masm mode: TYPE <expression>
Ideal mode: TYPE <symbol>
Remarks Masm mode:
(Keep discussion as exists now)
Ideal mode:
TYPE is used to get the type of an
existing symbol. In Ideal mode, this
operation can only be used where a type
specifier is needed.
Example Masm mode:
(Keep discussion as exists now)
Ideal mode:
ideal
...
bvar db 1 ;Byte storage.
tempvr dt ? ;Scratch area.
...
mov [bvar],0 ;Clear byte variable.
mov [type bvar ptr tempvr],0
;Clear scratch area of
;same size.
;Equivalent to 'BYTE PTR'.
- TED.ASM from PCMAGNET will now assemble and link properly. Be
sure to use the /t switch with TLINK to produce a .COM file.
- Existence of ">" character within a string passed to IFB macro
directive causes TASM 1.0 to report that extra characters are
on line. This will now be handled without an error if QUIRKS
directive is used. All characters past the embedded ">" will
be ignored.
- Colons within label names passed to IFDEF macro directive
are now ignored if QUIRKS directive is used. All characters
past the colon are ignored.
- In tiny model programs, all registers should be pointing to the
same DGROUP. If unwanted SS: overrides occur when referencing
variables in the DGROUP, use the statement ASSUME SS:NOTHING to
causes CS: overrides to be used.
-
[bytepointer.com edit] The PUBLICDLL directive appears in the binary and it assembles without
error, although the feature is not officially available until version 2.0.
TASM.EXE | 105,881 bytes (103k) | md5=b68a63d6a94672910d4149fad4c18f00 | date=5/7/1990 2:00am | | | |
|
??version reports: 512
Retail Price: $149.95
This version of TASM introduced support for the 80486 (i486) processor released by Intel in April of 1989.
Additionally, the console output during assembly added the line "Passes:" above "Remaining memory:".
The status lines shown below would not change until version 5.0:
Turbo Assembler Version 2.0 Copyright (c) 1988, 1990 Borland International
Assembling file: ver_dos.ASM
Error messages: None
Warning messages: None
Passes: 1
Remaining memory: 475k
The changelist below is an abbreviated form from the README,
the corresponding UPDATE.DOC and binary analysis.
Keywords revealed by binary analysis NOT present in any available changelist documentation are denoted by a
"(u)". The keywords that are completely undocumented as to their function, even in future documentation, are
listed in the possible undocumented features section at the bottom.
CHANGELIST:
-
PUBLICDLL directive:
The PUBLICDLL directive lets you define program labels and procedures to be dynamic link entry points as
well as publicizing them to your other modules, which allows you to build dynamic link libraries in
assembly code.
[bytepointer.com edit] Support unofficially available in version 1.01, but first documented here.
This is an IDEAL mode only directive.
-
Multiple pass capability - NOP removal:
Turbo Assembler 2.0 can pass over your source code more than once either for compatibility with some of
MASM's pass-dependent constructions or to remove NOP instructions that were added to the code because of
forward references. This feature is enabled by the command-line switch /m#, where # is the maximum
number of passes allowed. Turbo Assembler automatically assesses the need to perform extra passes up to
the maximum that you specify.
-
CALL extensions:
The CALL instruction has been extended in Turbo Assembler to allow high-level language routines to be
called in a language-independent manner. Any CALL instruction can now specify a language and an argument
list for the routine being called. Turbo Assembler automatically generates the necessary stack setup and
cleanup code required to pass the arguments to a high-level routine written in the specified language.
-
PUSH, POP instruction extensions:
The PUSH and POP instructions have been extended in Turbo Assembler to allow more than one argument to
appear in a single PUSH or POP instruction. For example,
push ax dx ;equivalent to PUSH AX then PUSH DX
pop dx ax ;equivalent to POP DX then POP AX
In addition, the PUSH instruction allows constant arguments even when generating code for the 8086
processor. Such instructions are replaced in the object code by a 10-byte sequence that simulates the
80186/286/386 PUSH immediate value instruction.
-
COMM extension:
The COMM directive has been extended to allow the array element size and the array element count to be
selected independently of each other for FAR communal variables. This supports Turbo C++'s inline code
generation, and can be used advantageously by a native assembly language programmer.
-
Generalized line-continuation character:
In TASM 2.0, a line-continuation feature has been added that works in TASM's Ideal mode and is available
even when the MASM 5.1 mode is off. A backslash (\) can be placed almost anywhere as a line-continuation
character. It cannot be used to break up strings or identifiers. Its meaning is "read the next line in
at this point and continue processing." It can thus be used in a natural way without losing the ability
to comment each line as desired.
-
Language-specific procedures, extrns, publics:
TASM 2.0 allows procedures, publics, extrns, and calls to be overridden with a language specifier. This
causes wide flexibility in writing assembler code that interfaces with multiple language models. The
MODEL statement has also been extended.
[bytepointer.com edit] Binary analysis suggests that the language modifier keyword "ASSEMBLER" was
renamed to "NOLANGUAGE" in this version.
-
New MODEL language modifier - WINDOWS:
Example:
.MODEL large,windows pascal
.code
foo proc
arg abc:word,def:word
xor ax,ax ;Generates FAR WINDOWS PASCAL sequences.
ret
endp
foo proc normal c
arg ghi:word,jkl:word
xor ax,ax ;Generates FAR NORMAL C sequences.
ret
endp
[bytepointer.com edit] This modifier was an important feature for 16-bit Windows programming. It
allowed the declaration of a high-level FAR PROC for a 16-bit Windows callback function; something never
supported by MASM (without the use of additional includes). The User's Guide describes the modifiers as follows:
[The language modifier of the model directive is used] to specify additional prolog and epilog code when you write
procedures for Windows, or for the Borland Overlay loader.
Barry Kauler's book, "Windows Assembly Language and Systems Programming" describes the WINDOWS qualifier as:
The WINDOWS qualifier takes care of generation of the special prolog and epilog required for a
[16-bit Windows 3.x] callback function.
...
...only applies to 16-bit TASM applications.
The WINDOWS qualifier was never supported in MASM. To get the same result in MASM,
one had to include CMACROS.INC and PROLOGUE.INC and enable the OPTION PROLOGUE/EPILOGUE features.
For reference, Barry Kauler's book provided the prologue and epilogue code sequences the WINDOWS language modifier
causes the assembler to generate:
push ds ;prologue for Windows 16-bit callback function
pop ax
nop
inc bp
push bp
mov bp,sp
push ds
mov ds,ax
...
dec bp ;epilog for Windows 16-bit callback function
dec bp
mov sp,bp
pop ds
pop bp
dec bp
ret 10
-
Virtual segments:
A new keyword VIRTUAL has been added to the SEGMENT statement. VIRTUAL defines a special kind of segment
that will be treated as a common area and attached to another segment at link time.
-
QASM Compatibility Additions:
TASM 2.0 has new and modified directives to support source code for QASM:
.STARTUP and STARTUPCODE
These commands generate startup code for the particular model in effect at the time. These also define
the near label @@Startup and cause the END statement at the end of the module to generate the equivalent
of 'END @@Startup'. Note that only the 'STARTUPCODE' directive is available in IDEAL mode.
.MODEL and MODEL
It is now possible to select a third field in the .MODEL statement to specify the stack association with
DGROUP: NEARSTACK or FARSTACK. For example, .MODEL SMALL,C,FARSTACK would specify that the stack not be
included in DGROUP. This capability is already provided in TASM through the language modifiers of the
same name. The additional field is provided only for MASM compatibility.
Two new predefined variables have been added:
@Startup: Defined by the .STARTUP and STARTUPCODE directives
@Model: An integer representing the model currently in effect.
0 = TINY 1 = SMALL 2 = COMPACT 3 = MEDIUM
4 = LARGE 5 = HUGE
New Intel 486 (80486) directives:
- .486,.486c,.486p (MASM mode only)
- P486N - Enables assembly of non-protected instructions for the 486 processor.
- P486 - Enables assembly of protected instructions for the 486 processor.
New Intel 486 (80486) instructions:
BSWAP <32-bit register> | - 486 byte swap instruction. |
XADD <r/m>,<reg> | - 486 exchange and add instruction. |
CMPXCHG <r/m>,<reg> | - 486 compare and exchange instruction. |
INVD | - 486 invalidate data cache instruction. |
WBINVD | - 486 write back and invalidate data cache inst. |
INVLPG <memptr> | - 486 invalidate TLB entry for address inst. |
New test registers:
New error messages:
- Global type doesn't match symbol type
- Illegal segment address
- Module is pass-dependent--compatibility pass was done.
- Near jump or call to different CS
- Only one startup sequence allowed
- Smart code generation must be enabled
- Text macro expansion exceeds maximum line length
- USES has no effect without language
CODEPTR type:
CODEPTR returns the default procedure address size depending on the current model (WORD for models with
NEAR code; DWORD for models with FAR code). CODEPTR can be used wherever DATAPTR is used. Here is its
syntax:
CODEPTR expression
RETCODE instruction:
The RETCODE instruction is exactly equivalent to RETN or RETF, depending on the specified model. RETCODE
syntax follows:
RETCODE {<expression>}
RETCODE is available in both MASM and Ideal modes.
SMART/NOSMART directives:
The SMART/NOSMART directives control the generation of optimized object code. These are the areas that
the SMART and NOSMART directives apply to:
- OR, AND, or XOR of a signed immediate byte
- PUSH <constant>
- PUSH <large pointer>
POP <large pointer>
- CALL <far address in same segment>
- JMP <far address in same segment>
- LEA <constant effective address>
The default condition is SMART enabled. When SMART is enabled, a qualifying FAR jump will be replaced by
a NEAR or a SHORT jump. Also, when SMART is enabled, a qualifying FAR call will be replaced by a PUSH CS
instruction and a NEAR call.
When NOSMART is selected, the following code generation changes occur:
- AND, OR, XOR of an immediate word value are no longer done
using the signed-extended immediate byte version of these
instructions where possible, but rather the longer
immediate word version that MASM uses.
- PUSH of a constant value on the 8086 processor using the
special 10-byte code sequence (which preserves all registers
and flags) is not allowed.
- PUSH and POP of a DWORD memory variable (or PWORD variable
on a 386) are not allowed.
- Far JMPs and CALLs within the same segment are no longer
optimized by replacing the FAR JMP or CALL with the NEAR
version.
- LEA instructions that refer to a constant effective address
will no longer be converted to the equivalent MOV operations.
For maximum MASM compatibility, you must select NOSMART and QUIRKS.
Overlay object code:
Turbo Assembler 2.0 supports overlays. Specifying the /o switch on the command line causes overlay-
compatible fixups to be generated. When this switch is used, 386 references to USE32 segments should not
be made since they won't link properly.
Updated QUIRKS mode list:
The following apply to QUIRKS mode:
- NEAR or SHORT jumps are generated even if FAR is specified, if source and destination segments are the same.
- Type checking for some two-argument instructions is disabled, for example, MOV ES,BYTEPTR is allowed.
- Forces an EQU to an expression with PTR in it to be a text macro.
- Forces an EQU to an expression with : in it to be a text macro.
- Forces an EQU to an expression with OFFSET in it to be a text macro.
- Forces SHL operator to lose track of sign info.
- Forces numeric equates (= or numeric EQU) to lose complex expression information such as segment, fixup type.
- Reduces priority of GLOBAL, UNION keywords so that they may be overridden.
- Causes warning instead of error to be generated if the second argument is missing in a two-argument instruction.
- Allows REPT without argument to be interpreted as REPT 0.
- Disables test for extra stuff on line after IF conditional.
The following apply to QUIRKS with MASM51:
- @@, @F, and @B are enabled.
- Trailing language ID after NEAR or FAR in procedure declaration is allowed.
- All procedure symbols are published globally.
- :: label definitions are allowed.
Command Line Options Added:
[bytepointer.com edit] Some of these explained above.
/mv# | - Set maximum valid length for symbols |
/m# | - Allow # multiple passes to resolve forward references |
/o,/op | - Generate overlay object code, Phar Lap-style 32-bit fixups |
/q | - Suppress OBJ records not needed for linking |
Language_modifier Keywords Added:
[bytepointer.com edit] The following keywords were found to be new in this version by binary analysis,
but undocumented in the changelists; they were all language modifiers in addition to the
documented WINDOWS keyword.
- NORMAL (u)
- ODDNEAR (u) - used in connection with the VROOM overlay manager
- ODDFAR (u) - used in connection with the VROOM overlay manager
The description below came from the TASM 4.0 User's Guide:
Use language_modifier to specify additional prolog and epilog code when you write procedures for
Windows, or for the Borland Overlay loader. These options are: NORMAL, WINDOWS, ODDNEAR and ODDFAR. If
you don't specify an option, Turbo Assembler assumes the default to be NORMAL.
...
The ODDNEAR and ODDFAR language modifiers are used in connection with the
VROOM overlay manager. VROOM has'two modes of operation: oddnear and oddfar.
You can use the Ila switch option on the Turbo Assembler command line to see the
prolog and epilog code that these language modifiers produce.
New Warning Class Identifiers:
- GTP (u) - Global type doesn't match symbol type
- MCP (u) - MASM compatibility pass
Possible Undocumented-Feature Keywords:
Article: Turbo Tools from Borland Highlight Conference InfoWorld February 12, 1990 |
|
|
|
Article: Three Turbo- charged Programming Tools from Borland PC Magazine September 11, 1990 |
|
|
|
TASM 2.0 Manuals |
|
|
|
TASM.EXE | 105,651 bytes (103k) | md5=91048dc8e05e20d5865a6cf70b6ca48c | date=10/29/1990 2:01am | | (date from install disks) | |
|
??version reports: 513
Although the README and
UPDATE.DOC had been updated in this version, they were
basically "reworked" versions of the corresponding 2.0 documents with no new information. This version
was likely a bugfix release with the only visible change to the command line help.
CHANGELIST:
-
Command Line Options Deleted:
The /ks# option (String space capacity) was removed. This was previously on the same line with the /kh
option (Hash table capacity) which now reads "Hash table capacity # symbols".
TASM.EXE | 71,283 bytes (70k) | md5=da7d0e8a3fb18afd93d5f35b630c04e0 | date=3/13/1991 3:02am | | | |
|
??version reports: 514
This version had the smallest executable size of any TASM, even 1.0! Because of this, I originally
suspected this version to be a fake, but it turns out that the binary was packed with PKLITE V1.12. The DOS
unpacker TRON restored the file from 71283 bytes (70k) to 106105 bytes (104k) allowing binary analysis and
putting the file size perfectly on par with the sizes of the sibling versions. Unpacked, this version is 416 bytes smaller than
version 2.5. It is also interesting to note
that the linker (TLINK.EXE) as well as the rest of the executable files (EXE and COM) in the distribution I have
were also packed with PKLITE. This is the only version of TASM I've seen that has had an EXE packing applied.
Since version 2.01, there were no documented changes to the product.
The README changes consisted of a search and
replace of the number 2.01 with 2.02 and Borland's Technical Support zip code changed
from 95066 to 95067. Otherwise, all other DOC files, including the
UPDATE.DOC were identical.
Binary analysis and testing however showed the presence of new keywords not yet officially documented.
Keywords revealed by binary analysis NOT present in any available changelist documentation are denoted by a "(u)".
Some descriptions were derived from the TASM 4.0 manual:
CHANGELIST:
-
Beta Feature Instructions?:
[bytepointer.com edit] Binary analysis showed the presence of the following instructions, which were not
officially supported until version 2.5, but will assemble without error in this version:
- ENTERW (u)
- ENTERD (u)
- LEAVEW (u)
- LEAVED (u)
-
New Segment Alignment Attribute
- MEMPAGE (u) - Start a segment on the next memory page (4Kb aligned) address.
-
New Segment Access Attributes
For any segment in protected mode, you can control access so that certain kinds of memory operations
are not permitted. (Note that this feature is currently supported only by the Phar Lap linker. You
must generate object code compatible with it using the /op switch if you want to be able to use the
segment access attribute.) The segment access attribute tells the linker to apply specific access
restrictions to a segment. The legal values for this attribute are listed below.
- EXECONLY (u) - the segment is executable only
- EXECREAD (u) - the segment is readable and executable
- READONLY (u) - the segment is readable only
- READWRITE (u) - the segment is readable and writable
-
New Memory Model
-
TCHUGE (u) - this is the recommended memory model (for use with .MODEL directive) when linking with modules
built with the Borland C++ huge memory model; this is the same as the LARGE model, but with
different segment register assumptions.
-
New Error Message (u) - "32-bit value truncated to 16 bits"
TASM 2.5 © 1988, 1991 Borland International |
TASM.EXE | 106,521 bytes (104k) | md5=00b07efeb49c7163c55234e9bdccedc1 | date=2/13/1991 2:00am | | (from Borland C++ 2.0) | | [Command Line] |
TASMX.EXE | 109,234 bytes (107k) | md5=f9f61f370406b0e9bba4b137ceca1129 | date=2/13/1991 2:00am | | (from Borland C++ 2.0) | | [Command Line] |
|
??version reports: 517
A README wasn't available to me for this version, but the changelist and descriptions were was derived from the
TASM 4.0 User's Guide.
Binary analysis shows very little changes to the executable between version 2.02 (unpacked) and this version as the prior
version appeared to have implemented all the features already. These features were probably being beta tested in
2.02.
CHANGELIST:
-
Introduction of TASMX.EXE (DOS Protected Mode Assembler):
[bytepointer.com edit] This appears to be the first version distributed with TASMX.EXE, designed for
assembling 16 and 32-bit binaries. The Borland C++ 2.0 README described TASMX.EXE as follows:
Two versions of Turbo Assembler have been provided. TASMX.EXE can be run from the Windows DOS
prompt, and takes advantage of the DOS Protected Mode Interface (DPMI) that Windows 3.0 provides.
This allows the assembler to take advantage of Windows' memory management and to dramatically
increase capacity. TASM.EXE uses standard DOS memory, and is provided for operation in environments
without DPMI support such as DOS and the non-386 enhanced modes of Windows.
...
In order to take advantage of DPMI support feature, you must be running Windows in 386 enhanced
mode.
...
Enhanced mode is not available when Windows 3.0 is run on processor less than a 386.) Also,
DPMILOAD.EXE must be somewhere in your path.
...
TASMX is not designed to be a Windows application, so you must enter a Windows 3.0 DOS prompt to use
TASMX. Then to use TASMX, just type TASMX wherever you would normally type TASM. All command-line
options are the same as the previous version of TASM. When run within the Windows 3.0 DOS prompt,
TASMX will be able to use almost all the free memory in the system, if neccessary, for assembling
large programs.
...
TASM 2.5 will still run without Windows 3.0 DPMI. If DPMI support is not found, you must have
TASM.EXE somewhere in your path. Then if you load TASMX, it will run TASM.EXE within the normal 640K
DOS environment. Turbo Assembler will not be able to assemble programs larger than normal without
DPMI support.
...
We encourage you to try TASMX on all your assembler source code, both from the normal DOS prompt and
from within a Windows 3.0 DOS prompt. TASMX should be able to handle all programs that work properly
with TASM 2.01.
-
New Instructions (available in 2.02, but official in this version):
- ENTERD
- LEAVED
- ENTERW
- LEAVEW
Additional 80386 ENTER and LEAVE instructions:
Use the ENTER and LEAVE instructions for setting up and removing a procedure's frame on the stack.
Depending on whether the current code segment is a 32-bit segment or a 16-bit segment, the standard
ENTER and LEAVE instructions will modify either the EBP and ESP 32-bit registers, or the BP and SP
16-bit registers. These instructions might be inappropriate if the stack segment is a 32-bit segment
and the code segment is a 16-bit segment, or the reverse.
Turbo Assembler provides four additional instructions that always select a particular stack frame
size regardless of the code segment size. The ENTERW and LEAVEW instructions always use BP and SP as
the stack frame registers, while the ENTERD and the LEAVED instructions always use EBP and ESP.
TASM.EXE | 106,521 bytes (104k) | md5=cdc904c8c97f3650ace52db8a185edab | | | | |
|
??version reports: 517
Like some of TASM's other minor releases, official information on this version is unknown. Official file date
information is also unknown however sibling versions place it in the 1991 releases, matching its reported
copyright. Official or not, it was likely a quick-fix release (likely originating as a patch) distributed prior
to the supported corresponding fixes in version 3.0. The reported version number did not change.
Binary analysis shows only a total difference of 32 bytes from version 2.5 and the file size remained the same.
Besides the reported version on the command line, no other string differences were found.
TASM 3.0 © 1988, 1991 Borland International |
TASM.EXE | 115,471 bytes (113k) | md5=9ffe8c8936a5483edf27ccde738d234f | date=11/11/1991 4:00am | | | | [Command Line] |
TASMX.EXE | 142,186 bytes (139k) | md5=3ae74448b910c1d0a44ff9d67ce4cebf | date=11/11/1991 4:00am | | | | [Command Line] |
|
??version reports: 768
Following Microsoft's major MASM 6.0 release, which added 32-bit support for OS/2's flat memory model, Borland
responded with this version of TASM about 7 months later. Borland clearly added some important features, such
as object-oriented capabilities not supported by MASM, but
chose not to add support for MASM's 6.0 syntax. With seemingly exacting precision, Microsoft responded with the
release of MASM 6.1 within 1 week of TASM 3.0, further solidifying what would later become known as the standard
MASM syntax that remains to this day. In addition to the new flat model support for NT, Microsoft also finally
added features to make its own MASM near-100% compatible with the MASM 5.1 syntax. For the first time since its
inception, TASM was no longer near-100% MASM compatible and Microsoft was ahead of Borland for the first time
EVER, at least in terms of MASM compatibility and operating system support. For those that liked TASM's for its
IDEAL mode, TASM was still considered a great, fast and cheaper alternative to MASM.
One of the major additions to version 3.0 was TASM's object-oriented capabilities. MASM never supported
any object-oriented features and I think Borland was hoping this would set TASM apart. Although not required, the
User's Guide highly recommends using IDEAL mode when using the proprietary and specialized object-oriented
syntax. In a section titled "Why use objects in Turbo Assembler?", the User's Guide provides the following
explanation:
Most people think of assembly language as a low-level language. Turbo Assembler, however, provides many
of the features of a high-level language (such as abstract data types, and easy interfacing to other
languages). The addition of object-oriented data structures gives Turbo Assembler the power to create
object-oriented programs as easily as high-level languages while retaining the speed and flexibility of
assembly language.
Trial and error shows that this was the first version to support the FLAT model, and therefore it can be assumed
it was the first version to support assembling 32-bit binaries despite the assembler itself running under DOS.
This FLAT model 32-bit support was exclusively for OS/2 as the Windows NT 3.1 operating system debut wouldn't be
released for another 2 years (on 7/27/1993). The 32-bit protected-mode assembler (TASM32.EXE) would not be
available until version 4.0.
A README wasn't available to me for this version, but the keyword changes were derived from the TASM 4.0 User's Guide
and binary analysis. Keywords revealed by binary analysis NOT present in any available changelist documentation are
denoted by a "(u)". The keywords that are completely undocumented as to their function, even in future
documentation, are listed in the possible undocumented features section at the bottom.
Descriptions were also derived from the TASM 4.0 User's Guide.
CHANGELIST:
TASM 3.0 User's Guide |
|
|
TASM 3.1 © 1988, 1992 Borland International |
TASM.EXE | 129,266 bytes (126k) | md5=1386aec2a615e65f3aaffdccf0b66f64 | date=6/10/1992 3:10am | | (from Borland C++ 3.1) | | [Command Line] |
TASMX.EXE | 142,990 bytes (140k) | md5=3231b935a5b75c42dfdac60b5d40f895 | date=6/10/1992 3:10am | | (from Borland C++ 3.1) | | [Command Line] |
|
??version reports: 778
This version introduced support for Intel's i487SX (80487) coprocessor, used by the i486SX processor (it was
a full-blown i486DX processor internally, but modified slightly for marketing purposes). The TASM 4 and 5
User's Guides incorrectly list the .487 and P487 directives as being present in TASM 1.0. Binary analysis
confirms these directives were not present until this version of TASM.
A README wasn't available to me for this version, but the keyword changes were derived from the TASM 4.0 User's
Guide and binary analysis. Keywords revealed by binary analysis NOT present in any available changelist documentation are
denoted by a "(u)". Descriptions were also derived from the TASM 4.0 User's Guide.
CHANGELIST:
-
New Keywords Introduced:
-
PUSHSTATE:
The PUSHSTATE directive saves the current operating state on an internal stack that is 16 levels
deep. PUSHSTATE is particularly useful if you have code inside a macro that functions independently
of the current operating state, but does not affect the current operating mode. Note
that you can use PUSHSTATE outside of macros. This can be useful for include files. The state
information that Turbo Assembler saves consists of:
- current emulation version (for example, T310)
- mode selection (for example, IDEAL, MASM, QUIRKS, MASM51)
- EMUL or NOEMUL switches
- current processor or coprocessor selection
- MULTERRS or NOMULTERRS switches
- SMART or NOSMART switches
- the current radix
- JUMPS or NOJUMPS switches
- LOCALS or NOLOCALS switches
- the current local symbol prefix
-
POPSTATE:
Use the POPSTATE directive to return to the last saved state (from PUSHSTATE) from the stack.
-
P487 (u):
Enables assembly of 487 numeric processor instructions. This instruction works in both MASM and Ideal modes.
-
.487 (u):
Enables assembly of 487 numeric processor instructions. This instruction works only in MASM mode.
-
UNINIT (u):
This segment combination attribute produces a warning message to let you know that you have
inadvertently written initialized data to uninitialized data segments. For example, you can
specify the following to produce a warning message: BSS SEGMENT PUBLIC WORD UNINIT 'BSS'. To
disable this warning message, use the NOWARN UNI directive. You can reenable the message by
using the WARN UNI directive.
-
T310 (u):
VERSION directive identifier for [the current] Turbo Assembler 3.1
-
New Warning Class Identifiers:
- INT (u) - INT 3 generation
- UNI (u) - For turning off uninitialized segment warning
-
Command Line Options Changed:
Standard and IBM overlay options added.
The overlay command line options were previously listed as:
/o,/op Generate overlay object code, Phar Lap-style 32-bit fixups
With the addition of /os (standard) and /oi (IBM), the options now read as follows:
/os,/o,/op,/oi Object code: standard, standard w/overlays, Phar Lap, or IBM
TASM 3.2i © 1988, 1992 Borland International |
TASM.EXE | 133,698 bytes (131k) | md5=186d73c0c0b85a91cef1ab4684e47fc1 | date=10/1/1992 7:00am | | (from Borland Pascal 7.0) | | [Command Line] |
TASMX.EXE | 147,064 bytes (144k) | md5=a6fefafe494ee7cfd34f32824d8ca9c9 | date=10/1/1992 7:00am | | (from Borland Pascal 7.0) | | [Command Line] |
|
??version reports: 788
This version was found in an earlier release of Borland Pascal 7.0, whereas version 3.2 (without the "i") was
seen in a later release of the same product indicating this "i" version was an "internal" or pre-release
version. The distribution included manual reference and correction information in the
HELPME!.TSM file.
One visible difference of this version of TASM is that the command line displays the following on the second line:
Serial No: Tester:
We see this Serial/Tester line again in an official Borland release to the public in patched version 5.0r.
The changelist information below was derived from
HELPME!.TSM and binary analysis. Keywords revealed by binary
analysis NOT present in any available changelist documentation are denoted by a "(u)". Descriptions for the
undocumented changes were derived from the TASM 4.0 User's Guide. With the exception of the STDCALL keyword
which was an undocumented change for 3.2i and 3.2, all of the keywords listed below were officially documented
as new keywords for version 3.2 (the next version), another indicator the changes here were "beta".
CHANGELIST:
-
Greater MASM Compatibility for text equate substitutions:
Whenever a line requires the expansion of a text macro, use the % operator at the beginning of the line
to specifically indicate that the text macros should be expanded before the line is parsed. In previous
versions of Turbo Assembler, some instances of text macros (particularly where text macros had the same
names as assembly language keywords) would not be expanded.
For example, this situation could occur when you define a model on the command line. You could
assemble
.MODEL M
.CODE
NOP
END
with the following command line:
TASM /dM=SMALL A.ASM
Since Turbo Assembler now requires you to place the % operator at the beginning of the line containing
the text equate substitution, this program would change to:
% .MODEL M
.CODE
NOP
END
If you omit the %, you might receive an "Invalid Model Type" error.
-
New Keywords Introduced:
-
PROCTYPE (u):
This directive allows you to use user-defined data types (called a procedure type) to describe
the arguments and calling conventions of a procedure. Turbo Assembler treats procedure types
like any other types; you can use it wherever types are allowed. Note that since procedure types
don't allocate data, you can't create an instance of a procedure type. The Ideal mode syntax is:
PROCTYPE name [procedure_description]
The MASM mode syntax is:
name PROCTYPE [procedure_description]
procedure_description is similar to the language and argument specification for the PROC directive.
You can use a procedure type (defined with PROCTYPE) as a template for the procedure declaration
itself. For example,
footype PROCTYPE pascal near :word, :dword,:word
.
.
.
foo PROC footype ;pascal near procedure
arg a1:word,a2:dword,a3:word ;an error would occur if
;arguments did not match
;those of footype
When you declare a procedure using a named procedure description, the number and types of the
arguments declared for PROC are checked against those declared by PROCTYPE. The procedure
description supplies the language and distance of the procedure declaration.
-
PROCDESC (u):
This directive allows you to declare procedure prototypes much like procedure
prototypes in C. Turbo Assembler treats the procedure name as if it were a GLOBAL symbol. If
you've defined the procedure within the module, it is treated as PUBLIC. Otherwise, Turbo
Assembler assumes it to be EXTRN. You can place PROCDESC directives in an include file.
The Ideal mode syntax of PROCDESC is:
PROCDESC name [procedure_description]
Use the following syntax in MASM mode:
name PROCDESC [procedure_description]
procedure_description is similar to the language and argument specification used in the PROC
directive.
- PUSHAW (u) - forces a WORD-style PUSHA instruction
- POPAW (u) - forces a WORD-style POPA instruction
- PUSHFW (u) - forces a WORD-style PUSHF instruction
- POPFW (u) - forces a WORD-style POPF instruction
- IRETW (u) - forces a WORD-style flags POP for the IRET instruction
- T320 (u) - VERSION directive identifier for [the current] Turbo Assembler 3.2
- STDCALL (u) - uses C calling conventions for procedures with variable arguments, and Pascal
calling conventions for procedures with fixed arguments. It always uses the C naming convention.
[bytepointer.com edit] STDCALL is missing from the official version 3.2 New Keywords list in the User's Guides
TASM 3.2 © 1988, 1992 Borland International |
TASM.EXE | 133,580 bytes (130k) | md5=91058c9cfc37d89bb283930ca4a33c13 | date=3/9/1993 7:01am | | (from Borland Pascal 7.01) | | [Command Line] |
TASMX.EXE | 146,988 bytes (144k) | md5=f8e7693eb66715005d5a5c57b69b2bbe | date=3/9/1993 7:01am | | (from Borland Pascal 7.01) | | [Command Line] |
|
??version reports: 788
This version was seen in an later release of Borland Pascal 7.0, whereas version 3.2i was
seen in an earlier release of the same product; this seems to indicate this was the "finalized" 3.2 version.
??Version reports the same number as in version 3.2i.
The changelist below was derived from a diff of the
earlier HELPME!.TSM
and the later HELPME!.TSM files from the two Borland Pascal 7.0
releases along with portions derived and paraphrased from the TASM 4.0 User's Guide. Most of the features that
were added in 3.2i (assumed to be "beta"), were announced officially in this version.
CHANGELIST:
-
Variable Argument Lists:
Syntax for defining arguments passed to a procedure:
ARG argument [,argument] ... [=symbol]
[RETURNS argument [,argument]]
An individual argument has the following syntax:
argname [[ countl_expression]] [: complex_type [: count2_expression]]
You can specify count2_expression using the ? keyword to indicate that a variable number of arguments are
passed to the procedure. For example, an argument definition of
ARG tmp:WORD:?
defines an argument called tmp, consisting of a variable number of words.
-
Segment Overrides:
Turbo Assembler 3.2 now handles segment overrides in a more consistent manner. All segment overrides in
MASM mode programs must occur outside the [] of a memory expression. For example, this line that
previous versions of TASM would accept,
MOV AX,[ES:BX]
will now generate a warning:
*Warning* segment.ASM(3) ":" operator ignored
Also, the segment override will not be generated.
To fix this warning, and to cause the expected segment override, it is important to move the ES: outside
of the memory [], like this:
MOV AX,ES:[BX]
-
New Keywords present in 3.2i, now official in this version:
- PROCTYPE
- PROCDESC
- PUSHAW
- POPAW
- PUSHFW
- POPFW
- IRETW
TASM 4.0 © 1988, 1993 Borland International |
TASM.EXE | 134,884 bytes (132k) | md5=e0b20a28c3a3a5bcce9c2340ec0a4e19 | date=12/1/1993 4:00am | | (from Borland C++ 4.0 Upgrade) | | [Command Line] |
TASMX.EXE | 148,378 bytes (145k) | md5=7f66ab8c0e71d0944125267a4686df44 | date=12/1/1993 4:00am | | (from Borland C++ 4.0 Upgrade) | | [Command Line] |
TASM32.EXE | 163,840 bytes (160k) | md5=ff6ad95e9f2dfb9396e81ce8e757df2d | date=12/1/1993 4:00am | | (from Borland C++ 4.0 Upgrade) | | [Command Line] |
|
??version reports: 1024
This version of TASM introduced support for the Pentium (i586) processor released by Intel on 3/22/1993.
Although you could previously build 32-bit binaries for OS/2, this was the first version of TASM to support
building 32-bit binaries for Windows NT 3.1, released 7/27/1993 (about 3 months prior to the release of this
version). Also included was TASM's first ever 32-bit protected mode assembler (TASM32.EXE). TASM was somewhat
more on track with Microsoft's MASM due to the release of the protected mode assembler and NT support, but still
offered no support for MASM's 6.x syntax.
This version of TASM was bundled with the Borland C++ 4.0 Upgrade, as noted in the
TSM_INST.TXT.
The TSM_RDME.TXT (README), unfortunately doesn't contain much
information on the changes.
TASM32.EXE for versions 4.0 and 4.1 could not handle quoted filenames on the command line, although this
was fixed by version 5.0. Passing a quoted filename resulted in the following error:
**Fatal** Command line: Can't locate file
Another bug present in TASM32.EXE since its inception (4.0 in 1993) to the present (as of TASM 5.4 from 12/7/2013)
is that full debugging information (/zi) cannot be specified on the command line with any listing file options
(/l or /la). With this combination, TASM32.EXE crashes with an Access Violation; that is when assembling a 32-bit FLAT
model module. Passing the same options when either using the SMALL model, or the DOS assembler TASM.EXE,
the crash does not occur. This bug is so easy to reproduce, it was most likely known to Borland, but for
whatever reason, they never fixed it. The following is the simplest Win32 application that can be used to
reproduce the bug, just make sure you pass the /zi and /l options on the command-line:
.386
.MODEL FLAT
ExitProcess PROCDESC STDCALL :DWORD
.CODE
start:
call ExitProcess,0
END start
The changelist information was derived from binary analysis, README information (above), and the TASM 4.0 and
5.0 User's Guides (the 4.0 guide was missing most of the keywords). Keywords revealed by binary analysis NOT
present in any available changelist documentation are denoted by a "(u)". The keywords that are completely
undocumented as to their function, even in future documentation, are listed in the possible undocumented
features section at the bottom. However the TASM 5.0 User's Guide incorrectly lists this version as supporting
the Pentium's RDTSC and RSM instructions. The RDTSC instruction is not supported until version 5.2b and the RSM
instruction has never been supported with any known version of TASM.
The TASM 4 User's Guide also incorrectly lists the ALIAS directive and the two Pentium directives .587 and P587
as being present in TASM 1.0. These were corrected in the TASM 5 User's Guide. Binary analysis
confirms support for these directives were not present until this version of TASM.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
- 4 MB Extended Memory
- 80386 processor or higher
- DOS 4.01 or later
- Windows 3.1 or later
- Approximately 2 MB hard disk space
CHANGELIST:
TASM 4.0 Box Images |
|
|
|
TASM 4.1 © 1988, 1996 Borland International |
TASM.EXE | 136,018 bytes (133k) | md5=ff229c6cf0c77d7a112857ad6755e086 | date=2/21/1996 5:00am | | (bundled with TASM 5.0) | | [Command Line] |
TASMX.EXE | 149,404 bytes (146k) | md5=88c89dfb0a9b1179a7ec9f9f0655360c | date=2/21/1996 5:00am | | (bundled with TASM 5.0) | | [Command Line] |
TASM32.EXE | 163,840 bytes (160k) | md5=99adc798c3d15668b25a1986d7d1b117 | date=2/15/1994 6:33pm | | (date from patch file) | | [Command Line] |
|
??version reports: 1034
The version 4.1 DOS assemblers were bundled with the version 5.0 retail box set. Since version 5.0 was only
available as TASM32.EXE, Borland also bundled the latest DOS versions (4.1) for those who still needed TASM to
run under DOS. THE CHANGELIST BELOW MOSTLY APPLIES TO THESE DOS ASSEMBLERS (TASM.EXE, TASMX.EXE) AND NOT THE
TASM32 PATCHED VERSION ALSO DESCRIBED HERE! Binary analysis and empirical evidence shows the TASM32 (4.0 to
4.1) patched version does not have any of the keyword changes found in the DOS versions shipped with 5.0; in
other words, the patched version is essentially TASM 4.0 with the long filename issue addressed.
This was the last version to support the TASM.EXE and TASMX.EXE DOS assemblers.
I do not know if this version was distributed standalone, but it was likely distributed additionally as upgrade.
Future official versions would only maintain the TASM32.EXE assembler.
One way to obtain the TASM 4.1 32-bit assembler was to upgrade the 4.0 TASM32.EXE using the patch found on the
Borland C++ Technical Support
page. The last known copy of this page on 6/17/2002 can be found
HERE. The patch README,
TA4P01.TXT, contained the description:
Updates Turbo Assembler 4.0 for Chicago compatibility.
"Chicago" was the Microsoft codename for Windows 95. Borland's website description for the patch was:
ta4p01.zip - Tasm 4.0 patch 1 (50KB). Fixes long filenames use under Win95
The descriptions above may have been all the patched version addressed, as it did not have any
of the other keyword changes present in the DOS assemblers also displaying the version "4.1".
Like version 4.0, TASM32.EXE version 4.1 could not handle quoted filenames on the command line, despite the
other filename changes addressed by the patch.
With exception of the "long filename" fixes described by Borland, the changelist information below was derived
solely from binary analysis. Each keyword denoted by a "(u)" represents not only an undocumented change, but an
undocumented feature. The T410 version identifier was mentioned in the TASM 5.0 User's Guide
PATCH INFO:
-
DISTRIBUTED AS PATCH (TA4P01.ZIP) for version 4.0 TASM32.EXE
AFFECTED FILES: TASM32.EXE, H2ASH.EXE, H2ASH32.EXE
LAST OFFICIAL DOWNLOAD LOCATION: ftp://ftp.inprise.com/pub/borlandcpp/devsupport/patches/tasm/ta4p01.zip
OLDER DOWNLOAD LOCATION: ftp://ftp.borland.com/pub/techinfo/techdocs/language/tools/turboasm/ta4p01.zip
REQUIREMENTS: RPatch 3.20 last officially available as ftp://ftp.inprise.com/pub/borlandcpp/devsupport/patches/bc5/patch.zip
NOTE: All of the official download links are dead. RPatch 3.20 (PATCH.EXE) is needed to apply
the patch above; it can be found in the
TASMPT.ZIP package shown below for version 5.0r.
CHANGELIST:
-
Long filename support for Windows 95 (Chicago)
-
Other Keywords Introduced:
- T410 - VERSION directive identifier for [the current] Turbo Assembler 4.1
-
Possible Undocumented-Feature Keywords:
- STACKALIGN (u)
- STACKUNALIGN (u)
[bytepointer.com edit] The official manuals do not describe how exactly these keywords behave but the feature list found on the
last working Lazy Assembler page
(version 0.56 from 8/6/2007) describes them in their TASM implementation as
"control of stack alignment with stackalign, stackunalign directives".
TASM32.EXE | 184,320 bytes (180k) | md5=870f03f5559b5437cb3637c8690ace10 | date=2/21/1996 5:00am | | | |
|
??version reports: 1280
Retail Price: $129.00
In this version, Borland finally added the features to bring TASM up to speed with the newer MASM 6.x syntax
although it did so nearly 5 years after the release of MASM 6.0! In the process, TASM also failed to support near-100% MASM
compatibility for this syntax that they had been famous for in the past. For example, there was no support for
INVOKE (MASM's high-level call statement), the ADDR operator, etc.
The TASM 5.0 User's Guide made the following statement:
Turbo Assembler in MASM mode is very compatible with MASM version 6.1. However, 100% compatibility is an ideal
that can only be approached, since there is no formal specification for the language and different versions of
MASM are not even compatible with each other.
I doubt a formal specification existed for the MASM syntax they were capable of emulating prior to MASM 6.x, but
they did very well despite this. The fact is that Borland would not or could not devote the resources to make themselves
near-100% MASM 6.x compatible. Unfortunately, the User's Guide also retained the following paragraph at the
beginning of Chapter 3, which was no longer accurate:
For those of you struggling to make MASM do your bidding, this may be the most important chapter in the manual.
In addition to near-perfect compatibility with MASM syntax, Turbo Assembler smooths the rough areas of assembly
language programming with a MASM derivative we call Ideal mode.
The paragraph above was outdated as it was in reference to the MASM 5.1 and prior syntax (technically the 3.0
and 4.0 User's Guides say "very compatible with MASM 5.2", but 5.2 shouldn't count because that just meant Quick
Assembler; the syntax was still 5.1).
The MASM 6.x syntax was good enough that it still lives on to this day, virtually unchanged, in each new version
of MASM released by Microsoft. As of 2015, there have been at least 7 major versions of MASM starting with 7.0
that still use the same 6.x syntax and that will likely continue into the future. It might have done TASM some
good to have matched this syntax (even to the extent that it did) sooner rather than later in version 5.0.
With that said, what TASM added in version 5.0 was HUGE. Had the high-level features not been added to TASM in
its final major release (this version), the assembler they would have left to the world (and for C++Builder)
would have been horribly outdated. TASM did come pretty close to the MASM 6.x syntax; close enough that it
wasn't hard to convert source code between MASM and TASM, even if it could be a bit tedious.
This version was the last major release of TASM and the last version sold as a separate retail product.
Turbo Assembler 5.0 last sold on the
Borland US Online Shop
as a classic product for $129.00; as of November 2006, the page was gone.
TASM 5.0 was exclusively a 32-bit protected mode assembler (TASM32.EXE) for Windows and would be into the future,
although it retained the DPMI stub continuing to allow it to run under DOS provided you have the Borland Runtime Manager
(32RTM.EXE) and the 32-bit DPMI server (DPMI32VM.OVL) in your path.
The distribution did however include the previous DOS assemblers (TASM.EXE and TASMX.EXE) and linker (TLINK.EXE)
from version 4.1.
One visual change new to the console output during assembly is the removal of
the line "Remaining memory:" that had been present since 1.0:
Turbo Assembler Version 5.0 Copyright (c) 1988, 1996 Borland International
Assembling file: ver_dos.ASM
Error messages: None
Warning messages: None
Passes: 1
In contrast, note the console output for the prior version 4.1:
Turbo Assembler Version 4.1 Copyright (c) 1988, 1996 Borland International
Assembling file: ver_dos.ASM
Error messages: None
Warning messages: None
Passes: 1
Remaining memory: 452k
The changelist information below was derived from the TASM 5.0 User's Guide, binary analysis and the
TSM_RDME.TXT (README).
Each keyword denoted by a "(u)" was not officially documented.
Borland's Fact Sheet
displayed the following blurb:
Turbo Assembler 5.0 is a full featured stand-alone assembler. This product includes all the tools
needed to create and debug assembly programs for 16 and 32 bit DOS and Windows platforms, including
Windows 3.X, Win95, Win98, and NT. Some of the tools included are assemblers, linkers, console
style debuggers, and resource compilers. Each of these tools comes in a 16 bit and a 32 bit version.
C++Builder 5 Professional and Enterprise both include and integrate TASM32, the 32 bit assembler,
with the IDE, allowing you to write or add inline assembly code or assembly sources to your 32bit
Windows C/C++ projects. For building and debugging stand alone assembly programs for DOS and
Windows, Turbo Assembler 5.0 is recommended.
Create Fast Applications, Faster
Order the world-standard Borland Turbo Assembler® and see how lightning-fast assembly speeds can
turbocharge your turnaround times. In tests, the Borland Turbo Assembler proved itself up to 70%
faster than other popular macro assemblers, with assembly speeds of up to 48,000 lines per minute!
And it's versatile, with full Intel chip set support-from 8086
to Pentium.
IDEAL for Beginners and Pros
If you're just starting out in assembly language programming, Turbo Assembler's innovative IDEAL
assembly mode will help you get productive faster and catch more errors sooner. And if you're a C++
professional, Turbo Assembler's advanced coding instructions will help you get the most from your
assembly language programs. You'll especially like how Turbo Assembler's MASM compatibility mode
lets you add new life to legacy code.
Specifications
- Up to 48,000 lines-per-minute assembly
- Full 8088, 8086, 80286, 80386, i486, and Pentium support
- IDEAL and MASM assembly modes
- Interface support for C, C++, Pascal, FORTRAN, and COBOL
- Multi-pass assembler with forward-reference resolution
- Fast 16- and 32-bit Turbo Linker®
- Turbo Debugger® for DOS and Windows
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS / for a generic full installation (from TSM_INST.TXT):
- 8 MB system memory (req. to run Win32)
- Intel 386 or higher
- DOS 5.01 or later
- Windows 3.1 or later (to access Turbo Assembler help file)
- Windows '95 or Windows NT (for targeting those environments)
- Approximately 10 MB hard disk space
- 3.5" High Density Disk Drive
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS / from box top (see image below):
- IBM PC-compatible PC running DOS 3.31 or higher
- Minimum 2Mb memory and 1Mb disk space required for 16-bit development
- Minimum 8Mb memory and 2Mb disk space required for 32-bit development
CHANGELIST:
-
Thunk Compiler compatibility for Windows 95 flat thunking VIA the TASM32.EXE command-line option: -utthk
The TASM 5.0 User's Guide refers you to the sample program and documentation: \EXAMPLES\THUNK95.TXT
for more information on thunking.
[bytepointer.com edit] This -utthk command-line option is not listed in the command-line help!
-
Enhanced compatibility for MASM 6.1
-
Data Declarations:
Turbo Assembler now supports the use of type names as directives when defining
variables. For example, the line:
var DB 10
can now be written as:
var BYTE 10
The table below shows the type names and their equivalent directives.
Type | | Equivalent directive |
BYTE | | DB |
DWORD | | DD |
FWORD | | DF |
QWORD | | DQ |
TBYTE | | DT |
WORD | | DW |
-
New Signed Data Types:
Type | | Bytes | | Value range |
SBYTE | | 1 | | -128 to +127 |
SWORD | | 2 | | -32,768 to +32,767 |
SDWORD | | 4 | | -2,147,483,648 to +2,147,483,647 |
-
New Floating-point Data Types:
Type | |
Description | |
Bits | |
Significant digits | |
Approximate range |
REAL4 | | Short real | | 32 | | 6-7 | | 1.18 x 10-38 to 3.40 x 1038 |
REAL8 | | Long real | | 64 | | 15-16 | | 2.23 x 10-308 to 1.79 x 10308 |
REAL10 | | 10-byte real | | 80 | | 19 | | 3.37 x 10-4932 to 1.18 x 104932 |
Floating point constants can be designated as decimal constants or encoded hexadecimal
constants, as shown in the following examples:
; Real decimal numbers
dshort REAL4 34.56 ;IEEE format
ddouble REAL8 3.456E1 ;IEEE format
dtenbyte REAL10 3456.0E-2 ;10-byte format real format
; Hexadecimals, note the required trailing "r" and leading decimal digit
hexshort REAL4 4E700000r ;IEEE short
hexdouble REAL8 4E70000000000000r ;IEEE long
hextenbyte REAL10 4E776000000000000000r;10-byte real
- New conditionals and looping directives:
Turbo Assembler now supports several high level directives to permit program
structures similar to those in higher level languages, such as C++ and Object Pascal.
These directives generate code for loops and decisions, which are executed depending
on the status of a conditional statement. The conditions are tested at run time, and can
use the new run-time operators ==, !=, >=, <=, >, <, &&, ||, and !.
-
.IF .ELSE .ELSEIF .ENDIF
The directives .IF, .ELSE, .ENDIF generate conditional jumps. If the expression
following .IF evaluates to true, then the statements following the .IF are executed until
an .ELSE (if any), .ELSEIF (if any), or .ENDIF directive is encountered. If the .IF
expression evaluates to false, the statements following the .ELSE (if any) are executed
until an .ENDIF directive is encountered. Use .ELSEIF to cause a secondary expression
to be evaluated if the .IF expression evaluates to false.
The syntax for the .IF directives is:
.IF expression1
statements
[.ELSEIF expression2
statements]
[.ELSE
statements]
.ENDIF
Example
.IF bx == 16 ; if the value in bx equals 16
mov ax,20
.ELSE ; if the Value in bx does not equal 16
mov ax,30
.ENDIF
-
.WHILE .ENDW
The .WHILE directive executes the statements between the .WHILE and the .ENDW as
long as the expression following .WHILE evaluates to true, or until a .BREAK directive
is encountered. Because the expression is evaluated at the beginning of the loop, the
statements within the loop will not execute at all if the expression initially evaluates to
false. If a .CONTINUE directive is encountered within the body of the loop, control is
passed immediately back to the .WHILE where the expression is re-evaluated. If
.BREAK is encountered, control is immediately passed to the statement following the
.ENDW directive.
The syntax for the .WHILE directives is:
.WHILE expression
statements
.ENDW
Example
mov ax, 0 ; initialize ax to 0
.WHILE ax < 128 ; while ax is less than 128
mov dx, cx ; put the value of cx in dx
.IF dx == bx ; if dx and bx are equal
mov ax,dx ; put the value of dx in ax
.CONTINUE ; re-evaluate .WHILE expression
.ELSEIF ax == dx ; if ax equals dx
.BREAK ; break out of the .WHILE loop
.ENDIF
inc ax ; increment ax by 1
.ENDW ; end of .WHILE loop
-
.REPEAT .UNTIL .UNTILCXZ
The .REPEAT directive executes the statements between the .REPEAT and the .UNTIL
as long as the expression following the .UNTIL (or .UNTILCXZ) evaluates to true, or
until a .BREAK directive is encountered. Because the expression is evaluated at the end
of the loop, the statements within the loop will execute at least once, even if the
expression initially evaluates to false. If a .CONTINUE directive is encountered within
the body of the loop, control is passed immediately to the .UNTIL where the expression
is re-evaluated. If .BREAK is encountered, control is immediately passed to the
statement following the .UNTIL (or .UNTILCXZ) directive. The .UNTIL directive
generates conditional jumps. The .UNTILCXZ directive generates a LOOP instruction.
The syntax for the .REPEAT directives is:
.REPEAT
statements
.UNTIL expression
Example
mov ax, O ; initialize ax to 0
.REPEAT ; while ax is less than 128
inc ax ; increment by 1
.UNTIL ax >= 128 ; end of .REPEAT loop
-
.BREAK .CONTINUE
As noted above, .BREAK and .CONTINUE can be used to alter the program flow
within a loop. .CONTINUE causes the loop to immediately re-evaluate its expression,
bypassing any remaining statements in the loop. .BREAK terminates the loop and
passes control to the statement following the end of the loop.
Both .BREAK and .CONTINUE can be combined with an optional .IF directive. If the
.IF expression evaluates to true, the .BREAK or .CONTINUE are carried out, otherwise
they are ignored.
Example
mov ax, bz
.WHILE ax != cx
.BREAK .IF ax == dx
.CONTINUE .IF ax > dx
inc ax
.ENDW
-
Logical "C-like" Operators:
Operator | | Meaning |
== | | is equal to |
!= | | is not equal to |
>= | | is greater than or equal to |
<= | | is less than or equal to |
> | | is greater than |
< | | is less than |
&& | | and |
|| | | or |
! | | not |
& | | bit test |
-
Flags in Conditions
Turbo Assembler permits the use of flag values in conditions. The supported flag names are
ZERO?, CARRY?, OVERFLOW?,SIGN?, and PARITY?. For example, to use the value
of the CARRY flag in a loop expression, use:
.WHILE (CARRY?) ; if the CARRY flag is set...
statements
.ENDW
-
Macro Repeat Blocks with Loop Directives
Turbo Assembler supports "repeat blocks", or unnamed macros within a loop directive.
The loop directive generates the statements inside the repeat block a specified number of times.
-
REPEAT loops:
Use REPEAT to specify the number of times to generate the statements inside the macro.
The syntax is:
REPEAT constant
statements
ENDM
Example
number LABEL BYTE ; name the generated data
counter = O ; initialize counter
REPEAT 128 ; repeat 128 times
BYTE counter ; allocate a new number
counter = counter + 1; increment counter
ENDM
-
FOR loops:
Use the FOR loop to iterate through a list of arguments, using the first argument the
first time through, the second argument the second time through, and so on. The syntax
is:
FOR parameter,<argumentList>
statements
ENDM
The parameter represents the name of each argument inside the FOR block. The
argumentList is comma separated and enclosed in angle brackets.
Example:
powers LABEL BYTE
FOR arg, <1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128>
BYTE arg DUP (arg)
ENDM
The first iteration through the FOR loop sets arg to 1. The second iteration sets arg to 2.
The third sets arg to 4, and so on.
Text macros may be used in place of literal strings of values. The VARARG directive
can be used in the argumentList to create a variable number of arguments.
-
FORC loops:
FORC loops are almost identical to FOR loops, except that the argumentList is given a
string, rather than as a comma separated list. The loop reads the string, character by
character (including spaces), and uses one character per iteration. The syntax is:
FORC parameter, <text>
statements
ENDM
The parameter represents the name of each argument inside the FOR block. The text is a
character string and enclosed in angle brackets.
Example
alphabet LABEL BYTE
FORC arg, <ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ>
BYTE '&arg' ; allocate letter
ENDM
-
Text Macro Support:
A string of characters can be given a symbolic name, and have that name used in the
source code rather than the string itself. The named text is referred to as a text macro. Use
the TEXTEQU directive to define a text macro.
To assign a literal string to a text macro, enclose the string in angle brackets (<>). For
example:
myString TEXTEQU <This is my string>
To assign one macro to another text macro, assign the macro name as in the example below:
myString TEXTEQU <This is my string>
myNewString TEXTEQU myString ;value of myString now in myNewString as well
To assign a text representation of a constant expression to a text macro, precede the
expression with a percent sign (%). For example:
value TEXTEQU %(1 + num);assigns text representation of resolved expression to value
Text macros are useful for naming strings of text that do not evaluate to integers. For example:
pi TEXTEQU <3.14159> ; floating point constant
WPT TEXTEQU <WORD PTR> ; keywords
arg TEXTEQU <[bp+4]> ; expression
-
New Directives:
For MASM compatibility, Turbo Assembler now supports the directive STRUCT,
EXTERN, and PROTO. These directives are synonyms for the STRUC, EXTRN, and
PROCDESC directives, respectively.
-
Visibility in Procedure Declarations:
Turbo Assembler supports three visibility modes in procedure (PROC) declarations;
PRIVATE, PUBLIC, and EXPORT. The visibility indicates whether the procedure is
available to other modules. PUBLIC procedures are available to other modules. All
procedures are PUBLIC by default. PRIVATE procedures are available only within the
module in which they are declared. Code in other modules cannot call PRIVATE
procedures. If the visibility is EXPORT, the linker places the procedure's name in the
export table for segmented executables. EXPORT also enables PUBLIC visibility.
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Distance in Procedure Declarations:
In addition to the ability to specify NEAR or FAR distance in procedure (PROC)
declarations, Turbo Assembler now supports the modifiers NEAR16, NEAR32, FAR16,
and FAR32 when programming for the 80386, and up, and using both 16 and 32-bit
segments.
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SIZE operator in MASM mode:
In MASM mode the size operator returns the values below for the given labels:
Label | | SIZE |
SHORT | | 0FF01h |
NEAR16 | | 0FF02h |
NEAR32 | | 0FF04h |
FAR16 | | 0FF05h |
FAR32 | | 0FF06h |
Possible Undocumented-Feature Keywords:
- EPILOGUEDEF (u)
- PROLOGUEDEF (u)
- FLDENVD (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] DWORD override version of the FLDENV instruction (8087)
- FLDENVW (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] WORD override version of the FLDENV instruction (8087)
- FNSAVED (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] DWORD override version of the FNSAVE instruction (8087)
- FNSAVEW (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] WORD override version of the FNSAVE instruction (8087)
- FNSTENVD (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] DWORD override version of the FNSTENV instruction (8087)
- FNSTENVW (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] WORD override version of the FNSTENV instruction (8087)
- FRSTORD (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] DWORD override version of the FRSTOR instruction (8087)
- FRSTORW (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] WORD override version of the FRSTOR instruction (8087)
- FSAVED (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] DWORD override version of the FSAVE instruction (8087)
- FSAVEW (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] WORD override version of the FSAVE instruction (8087)
- FSTENVD (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] DWORD override version of the FSTENV instruction (8087)
- FSTENVW (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] WORD override version of the FSTENV instruction (8087)
- IRETDF (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] 32-bit interrupt return with no epilogue generation (i.e. LEAVE instruction) (80386)
- IRETF (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] interrupt return with no epilogue generation (i.e. LEAVE instruction) (80386)
- LOOPED (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] DWORD override version of the LOOPE instruction (80386)
- LOOPEW (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] WORD override version of the LOOPE instruction (80386)
- LOOPNED (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] DWORD override version of the LOOPNE instruction (80386)
- LOOPNEW (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] WORD override version of the LOOPNE instruction (80386)
- LOOPNZD (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] DWORD override version of the LOOPNZ instruction (80386)
- LOOPNZW (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] WORD override version of the LOOPNZ instruction (80386)
- LOOPZD (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] DWORD override version of the LOOPZ instruction (80386)
- LOOPZW (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] WORD override version of the LOOPZ instruction (80386)
- PUSHD (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] DWORD override version of the PUSH instruction (80386)
- PUSHW (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] WORD override version of the PUSH instruction (80386)
New VERSION Directive Indentifiers:
- M611 (u) - support for MASM 6.11
- T410 (u) - support for Turbo Assembler 4.1
- T450 (u) - [bytepointer.com edit] The presence of this keyword confirms that a TASM version 4.5
must have existed in some capacity, even if not released to the public. I've confirmed this VERSION
id does indeed work, but what functionality it enables is a different story.
- T500 - support for [the current] Turbo Assembler 5.0
TASM 5.0 Registration Card |
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TASM 5.0 Disk #1 |
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TASM 5.0 Manuals |
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* Complete and searchable copies of the manuals above are available on archive.org, courtesy of the bitsavers.org scan collection.
TASM 5.0 User's Guide (14MB)
TASM 5.0 Quick Reference (6.7 MB)
TASM32.EXE | 188,416 bytes (184k) | md5=e53a80ca8b18b138583e6fdc953def45 | date=2/5/1997 1:00am | | (date from TASM32.RTP (free download)) | |
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??version reports: 1280
This version was distributed as a patch with Borland's Debut product C++Builder 1.0 (Professional only).
TASM 5.0 was incompatible with C++Builder and this patch made the necessary modifications (among other
additions) so that TASM would function as the C++Builder's inline (or direct) assembler. This was the only
known version of C++Builder that didn't distribute TASM.EXE outright, as you needed a copy of TASM 5.0 to apply
the patch to. The C++Builder installation did not install TASM or the patch files, but rather the TASM patch
was included on the CD distribution as an optional addition.
C++Builder was born from Delphi, Borland's largely successful and first Rapid Application Development (RAD)
environment that was launched one year prior (2/14/1995). The primary difference between the two is that
C++Builder employs a C++ syntax rather than the Object Pascal syntax employed by Delphi. C++Builder bears
almost no resemblance to the development style and environment of Borland C++. Despite this, Borland officially
named C++Builder as the successor to Borland C++ and discontinued Borland C++ (the world-renowned plain C++
product). On some retail boxes, C++Builder is called "The upgrade for Borland C++".
This version of TASM had initial support the Pentium MMX instruction set, although it wasn't finalized until
version 5.2b. Intel released the MMX line of Pentium processors on 10/22/1996. Something curious about this
version is that its new file size of 188,416 bytes did not change for over 15 years until Embarcadero added a digital
signature to it. This was probably achieved by the future MMX and Pentium Pro support existing in this version,
but disabled; and, a large amount of padding within the executable!
If you didn't have C++Builder 1.0 Professional, you could download the 5.0r patch for free from Borland's
website. Borland's website included the following description:
Tasm 5.0 patch 1 (152KB). This patch will modify TD32.EXE and TASM32.EXE to support Borland C++Builder applications
The free patch contained the following files:
09/02/2002 05:00 AM 890 INSTALL.BAT
02/05/1996 04:07 PM 61,311 PATCH.EXE
04/11/1997 09:47 AM 832 README.TXT
02/05/1997 01:00 AM 48,705 TASM32.RTP
02/05/1997 01:00 AM 48,069 TD32.RTP
5 File(s) 159,807 bytes
Likewise, the C++Builder 1.0 CD contained the patch files in the \TASM_TD directory:
02/09/1997 06:00 PM 855 INSTALL.BAT
02/05/1996 09:07 AM 61,311 PATCH.EXE
02/09/1997 06:00 PM 48,705 TASM32.RTP
02/09/1997 06:00 PM 48,069 TD32.RTP
4 File(s) 158,940 bytes
Besides the different timestamps, the shared files between the two distributions were identical except for the
INSTALL.BAT file. INSTALL.BAT from the free patch distribution had a 2002 date (indicating it was later
modified) and had an odd CR CR LF line termination sequence rather than the standard CR LF sequence found in the
same file dated 2/9/1997 on the C++Builder CD. Although the CR CR LF sequence was likely erroneous, it doesn't
prevent INSTALL.BAT from functioning properly and is otherwise identical to the original. The only other change
between the two distributions was that only the free patch contained the
README.TXT file. The corresponding information on the
C++Builder distribution could be located in the "Important Information" section in the README.HLP file:
If you are using TASM32.EXE directly, or if the source code you are compiling contains inline assembler
statements, and you encounter an error such as :
[Linker Fatal Error] Fatal: Bad object file 'project1.cpp' near file offset 318d
you need to update your version of TASM32.EXE. To do so, run Install.BAT located in the \TASM_TD folder on the
C++Builder installation CD. Install.BAT takes two parameters:
Install <C++Builder_Drive> <C++Builder_Folder>
For example, if you installed C++Builder in C:\CBUILDER, you would enter (be sure to include the backslash in
the second parameter):
Install c: \cbuilder
Although the patch (TASM32.RTP) did work with the TASM 5.0 shipped in the standalone retail package, the patch distribution
also included a Turbo Debugger patch (TD32.RTP) that did not work with the Turbo Debugger bundled in the same package. The
Turbo Debugger may have already been "silently updated" (a common practice by Borland at the time). It is unclear which
version of Turbo Debugger the patch was intended to work with.
The latest and last version of Turbo Debugger was distributed for free from
Borland's C++Builder Compiler promotional website
as TurboDebugger.exe. Also available for free on this page
was the Borland C++ compiler version 5.5.1 (and tools) distributed as
freecommandLinetools.exe. This compiler and
associated tools could be used standalone or as a drop-in replacement for the corresponding tools in the final
version of Borland C++ 5.0 (with patches, the previous latest version of Borland C++ was 5.02).
This page of "freebies" was taken down sometime between February and June of 2002, although you can still find these
files available in various locations on the internet.
Like TASM version 3.2i, the command line displays the Serial/Tester line, indicating this was indeed a quick-fix (and
internal) version:
Serial No: Tester:
If the TASM32 binary is disassembled, the code that writes the text above to the console references two absolute
addresses within the executable image to write both the serial number and tester strings. These addresses point
to locations containing NULL characters appearing to be 9 and 26 bytes in length, respectively. They are
conveniently located directly after the string "TESTERNAME" in the binary, which appears to have no other
purpose in the assembler. My guess is that Borland may have had a tool that used the position of this
identifier to insert the tester name and serial number directly into the executable binary for internal
purposes.
The keyword changes below were derived solely from binary analysis and are denoted by a "(u)".
PATCH INFO:
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DISTRIBUTED AS PATCH (TASMPT.ZIP)
including PATCH.EXE, README.TXT, TASM32.RTP, and TD32.RTP
LAST OFFICIAL DOWNLOAD LOCATION: http://www.borland.com/devsupport/borlandcpp/patches/TASMPT.ZIP
CHANGELIST:
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New Pentium MMX Directives and Version Identifier:
- PMMX (u) - needed to assemble MMX instructions in this version
- PNOMMX (u)
- .MMX (u) - Borland commented out w/ space after period / doesn't work until 5.2b
- .NOMMX (u) - Borland commented out w/ space after period / doesn't work until 5.2b
- T510 (u) - VERSION directive identifier for Turbo Assembler 5.1
[bytepointer.com edit] This is version 5.0r with a new version identifier (the latest embedded within
file) that suggests we are at version 5.1. I think 5.0r is actually TASM 5.1,
although I don't know of any TASM that reports itself as version 5.1 on the command-line.
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New Pentium MMX Instructions:
- EMMS (u)
- MOVD (u)
- MOVQ (u)
- PACKSSWB (u)
- PACKSSDW (u)
- PACKUSWB (u)
- PADDB (u)
- PADDW (u)
- PADDD (u)
- PADDSB (u)
- PADDSW (u)
- PADDUSB (u)
- PADDUSW (u)
- PAND (u)
- PANDN (u)
- PCMPEQB (u)
- PCMPEQW (u)
- PCMPEQD (u)
- PCMPGTB (u)
- PCMPGTW (u)
- PCMPGTD (u)
- PMADDWD (u)
- PMULHW (u)
- PMULLW (u)
- POR (u)
- PSLLW (u)
- PSLLD (u)
- PSLLQ (u)
- PSRAW (u)
- PSRAD (u)
- PSRLW (u)
- PSRLD (u)
- PSRLQ (u)
- PSUBB (u)
- PSUBW (u)
- PSUBD (u)
- PSUBSB (u)
- PSUBSW (u)
- PSUBUSB (u)
- PSUBUSW (u)
- PUNPCKHBW (u)
- PUNPCKHWD (u)
- PUNPCKHDQ (u)
- PUNPCKLBW (u)
- PUNPCKLWD (u)
- PUNPCKLDQ (u)
- PXOR (u)
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New MMX Registers:
- MM0 (u)
- MM1 (u)
- MM2 (u)
- MM3 (u)
- MM4 (u)
- MM5 (u)
- MM6 (u)
- MM7 (u)
C++Builder 1.0 Standard Box |
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C++Builder 1.0 Professional CD and CD Case |
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C++Builder 1.0 Professional Splash Image |
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C++Builder 1.0 Professional Programmer's Guide |
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C++Builder 1.0 TLINK32/ILINK32 Quick Reference |
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tasm32.exe | 188,416 bytes (184k) | md5=d4fdbb5dcd838328cd403f6a5684f8ee | date=2/9/1998 3:00am | | | |
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??version reports: 1282
This version appears to be a "beta" version of 5.2. This theory is supported by the command line displaying the Serial/Tester
line (as in the previous version), and the fact that 5.2b actually predates version 5.2. I suspect that the
"b" in the version means "beta".
This version finalized the MMX support that was added in the previous version 5.0r with the MASM-compatible .MMX directive and
added some missing Pentium instructions. Additionally this version added support for the Pentium Pro (i686)
processors, released by Intel on 11/1/1995, although it wouldn't have the FCOMI variant instructions until
version 5.2.
It is important to note that C++Builder 3 is the successor to the first C++Builder (now known as 1.0). For
reasons unknown, Borland did not release a C++Builder 2. C++Builder 3 was the first version to distribute TASM
outright, but only in the Professional and Client/Server editions as shown in the
C++Builder 3 Feature Matrix.
Although the Standard Edition box is included in the images below, you can see by the features matrix on the
side of its box that the Professional Edition includes TASM:
"TASM for integrated assembly language performance".
C++Builder requires TASM to process any 32-bit inline assembler code as this support was not built-in to the compiler.
Also included in the C++Builder 3 distribution, was the new incremental linker (ilink32.exe), "Turbo Incremental Link"
at version 3.0. The older "Turbo Link" (tlink32.exe) version 2.5.0.0 was also included, but by time C++Builder
4 (including TASM 5.2) was released, it had been phased out for the new linker.
C++Builder 3 Pro and Client/Server |
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C++Builder 3 Standard Box |
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C++Builder 3 Professional Splash Image |
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The keyword changes below were derived solely from binary analysis and are denoted by a "(u)".
CHANGELIST:
-
New Pentium Pro Directives and Version Identifier:
- .686 (u)
- .686P (u)
- .686C (u)
- .687 (u)
- P686 (u)
- P686N (u)
- P687 (u)
- T520 (u) - VERSION directive identifier for [the current] Turbo Assembler 5.2
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New MMX Directives:
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New Pentium Instructions:
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New Pentium MMX Instructions:
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New Pentium Pro Instructions:
- UD2 (u)
- CMOVA (u)
- CMOVAE (u)
- CMOVB (u)
- CMOVBE (u)
- CMOVC (u)
- CMOVE (u)
- CMOVG (u)
- CMOVGE (u)
- CMOVL (u)
- CMOVLE (u)
- CMOVNA (u)
- CMOVNAE (u)
- CMOVNB (u)
- CMOVNBE (u)
- CMOVNC (u)
- CMOVNE (u)
- CMOVNG (u)
- CMOVNGE (u)
- CMOVNL (u)
- CMOVNLE (u)
- CMOVNO (u)
- CMOVNP (u)
- CMOVNS (u)
- CMOVNZ (u)
- CMOVO (u)
- CMOVP (u)
- CMOVPE (u)
- CMOVPO (u)
- CMOVS (u)
- CMOVZ (u)
- FCMOVB (u)
- FCMOVE (u)
- FCMOVBE (u)
- FCMOVU (u)
- FCMOVNB (u)
- FCMOVNE (u)
- FCMOVNBE (u)
- FCMOVNU (u)
TASM 5.2 © 1988,1999 Inprise Corporation |
TASM32.EXE | 188,416 bytes (184k) | md5=a234cbe33e445f8eddc8ea91e3d2b7c8 | date=1/27/1999 4:00am | | | | [Command Line] |
TASM32.EXE | 188,416 bytes (184k) | md5=dc162d5df54ec99311ddaccffd0b3434 | date=11/29/2002 5:00am | | (from PSG Labs' 53PATCH.EXE) | | [Command Line] |
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??version reports: 1282
This version is believed to have been distributed with C++Builder 4 Professional and appears to be the last
official version with changes (bugfixes and/or new features), excluding cosmetic changes.
This version finalized the Pentium Pro support added in the previous version 5.2b with the missing FCOMI
variant instructions.
In 1998, Borland changed its name to "Inprise". This was the first version bearing the new name and the last
version of Turbo Assembler with new features.
C++Builder 4 |
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C++Builder 4 Standard Splash Image |
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There is also a PSG Labs patch (53PATCH.EXE shown above as the second TASM32.EXE) that transforms the formerly
listed TASM32.EXE version 5.2 (in the header above) to the TASM32.EXE with the MD5 hash dc162d5df54ec99311ddaccffd0b3434; it claims
to have all of the 5.3 features listed in the PSG Labs UNOFFICIAL CHANGELIST in the 5.3 section below, although
it is listed here only because it still displays a command line identical to version 5.2 and reports the same
@@version.
The keyword changes below were derived solely from binary analysis and are denoted by a "(u)".
CHANGELIST:
-
New Pentium Pro Instructions:
- FCOMI (u)
- FCOMIP (u)
- FUCOMI (u)
- FUCOMIP (u)
TASM 5.3 © 1988, 2000 Inprise Corporation |
TASM32.EXE | 188,416 bytes (184k) | md5=e6e4dce5bf676419dab8ae09d312d0df | date=1/30/2000 10:00pm | | (File Date bundled with C++Builder 5 Enterprise) | | [Command Line] |
TASM32.EXE | 188,416 bytes (184k) | md5=8016445b7c7fdddafdf8625ef9d36a35 | date=1/31/2000 12:00am | | (PSG Labs) | | [Command Line] |
TASM32.EXE | 215,200 bytes (210k) | md5=d92ff4066164e9bd6ebebbc080761c6e | date=8/5/2002 5:00am | | (PSG Labs DOS32) | | [Command Line] |
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??version reports: 1283
The version first listed above (MD5 hash e6e4dce5bf676419dab8ae09d312d0df) was bundled with the following products:
- C++Builder 5 (file date 1/30/2000 10:00pm)
- C++Builder 6 (file date 1/31/2002 10:00pm)
- Turbo Delphi Explorer (file date 8/5/2006 11:41am)
- Turbo C++ Explorer (file date 9/8/2006 11:56am)
The Borland Developer Studio (predecessor to RAD Studio) was bundled with the
short-lived line of revived "Turbo" products.
The evaluation "Explorer" editions were Borland's attempt to compete with Microsoft's free Visual Studio Express Edition.
C++Builder 5 Enterprise |
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C++Builder 6 Enterprise |
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Turbo C++ Explorer / 2006 |
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Turbo Delphi Explorer / 2006 |
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C++Builder 5 Easter Egg Images |
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C++Builder 6 Team Employees |
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NOTE: I couldn't resist including the easter-egg images (above) embedded in the Borland C++Builder 5 and 6 executables.
These are allegedly images of the C++Builder team and many appearances of a creature known as "Borzilla".
Information on how to activate these as well as many other easter eggs in the Borland products are described on Brian Long's site:
C++Builder 5 Easter Eggs /
C++Builder 6 Easter Eggs.
Stepan Polovnikov, the Russian developer who wrote Lazy Assembler (LZASM), a.k.a.
PSG Labs, released a DOS extender version and a
Win32 version of TASM32.EXE that reported 5.3, but it is not known if these files were official releases from
Inprise or private hacks/fixes to an official release. PSG Labs also released a patch (53PATCH.EXE) to
transform version 5.2 into 5.3 (see the 5.2 section above for details) claiming to have the
features listed below. There is no official changelist information available on this version, but the PSG Labs
changelist is provided below (with spelling errors fixed).
Besides bugfixes which may or may not have been official, this appears to have been the first version of TASM
not to add any new features. It was also the first version (since the VERSION directive was introduced in TASM
3.0) where no new VERSION identifier was added. Following their convention, this version would have added the
T530 keyword, but did not. This is further evidence that no new features were released, thus nothing for the
VERSION directive to emulate.
If the official version did not include the fixes listed below, TASM 5.2 (the previous release) may have been
the last version of Turbo Assembler to have any changes, beyond cosmetic that would only appear in
later versions.
UPDATE: There is evidence that the changelist below only applies to the PSG Labs release. The
long filename bug (1st changelist item below) when assembling multiple files using wildcards
on the command line does indeed exist in the previous version, TASM 5.2.
This bug does not appear when run with the PSG Labs TASM 5.3, but it remains in the official TASM 5.3
release. In fact, the bug exists even in the TASM 5.4 releases. This strongly suggests the latest and best
TASM may in fact be the PSG Labs 5.3 release!
CHANGELIST (PSG Labs release):
- support long file names for "tasm32 *"
- assembling source filename begining with 'ï'
- fix @Cpu symbol value for ".286p", ".386p", ".486p", ".586p", ".686p", "p286", "p386", "p486", "p586", "p686" directives
- fix code generate for LOOPED & LOOPEW
- enabled @@,@B,@F labels in IDEAL mode
- support 2^32 labels for conditional directives
- other bugs
REFERENCE: Phatcode
(PSG Labs patches bundled with the TASM download)
tasm32.exe | 188,416 bytes (184k) | md5=78c9a9bfa1203745b08c0129e07053db | date=1/14/2009 12:03pm | | (from C++Builder RAD Studio 2009) | |
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??version reports: 1284
After January 2001, Inprise was renamed back to Borland. In 2006, Borland creates a division named CodeGear to
manage the development tools products (C++Builder, Delphi, etc.). In 2007, the CodeGear division is sold to
Embarcadero Technologies.
CodeGear Logos |
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This version has been distributed under the new CodeGear name with C++Builder since 2007, despite being owned by
Embarcadero. As of 2009, the file size hasn't changed since 5.0r in 1996 (12 years). Binary
analysis shows no keyword changes, but there were significant changes to the binary itself. I suspect these may
have included changes to integrate TASM with current versions of C++Builder/RAD Studio. Unfortunately without
official information, it is not known if these were indeed code/functionality changes or build-environment
changes, possibly involving the use of different linking flags.
C++Builder 2009 Logo |
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Very little is known about the changes to this version, although
Wikipedia does have
the following information:
TASM is still bundled with Embarcadero C++Builder and Delphi products. The current version (shipping with 2010 versioned products) is 5.4, Copyright 2009 to Codegear.
...
Unfortunately, Embarcadero's version 5.4 (4 November 2010) is virtually
identical to Inprise's version 5.3 (30 May 2000) with the name of the
company changed. Even the file sizes of the 5.3 and 5.4 are the same
(188416 bytes). What was new in version 5.3 was the added MMX support. And
nothing has changed since. By contrast, MASM version 6.15, dated 2 months
earlier than TASM version 5.3, already supported not just MMX, but also
3DNow! and SSE. So, already in 2000 TASM lagged behind, and since then it
has no longer really been developed
TASM 5.4 © 1988, 2010 Embarcadero Technologies, Inc. | [ | Command Line | ] |
tasm32.exe | 194,936 bytes (190k) | md5=4ffa43fb80e81c962cee8521c6fe715a | date=12/7/2013 4:55pm | | (from C++Builder RAD Studio12 XE5) | |
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??version reports: 1284
Embarcadero eventually changed the branding once again, removing references to CodeGear and using their own
name. This version continues to be supplied with C++Builder, including their free trial versions of RAD Studio.
Embarcadero Logos |
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Since the previous 5.4 version (CodeGear), this is the first version I've seen with a digital signature:
(Windows Explorer -> Properties). The digital signature is signed by "Embarcadero Technologies Inc." on
"Friday, December 06, 2013 5:32:49 PM", but still no version resource block.
Largely due to the new digital signature, the file size has increased about 6k. Besides superficial build
environment changes, it can be assumed that the feature set has not changed and no bugs have been fixed.
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