| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 1981; 39 years ago |
| Stable release | |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS |
| Type | Assembler |
| License | |
| Website | docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/assembler/masm/microsoft-macro-assembler-reference |
MASM 8.0 is free to download. Note that some assemblers—like Flat Assembler—can be used on multiple operating systems including Windows, DOS and Linux. Other assemblers—including Netwide Assembler (NASM) or GNU Assembler (GAS)—will work with Mac operating systems. Here I wanted to use MASM programming software by using DOS Box. You have to mount the drive and that program folder to run. Type MOUNT C C:MASM or any other program name file name. MOUNT C C:YourOwn, after that it will show you the message, Drive C is mounted as local directory C:MASM Now you can change the drive Z into C drive. Seems like a serious bug in MASM 8.0 and 9.0. Add the following macro to your source code to workaround the problem: movdfix MACRO op1, op2 LOCAL loc1, loc2 loc1 = $+1 movq op1, op2 loc2 = $ ORG loc1 DB 7Eh;; create MOVD ORG loc2 ENDM. And use it like this: movdfix edx+eax,mm0. If you installed MASM in a directory other that C: MASM611, then replace C: MASM611 in the command in step 2 above with the path where you installed MASM. If you installed MASM in C: MASM611, then you should reinstall MASM. Once you are sure that MASM is installed correctly, then you can follow these steps.
The Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) is an x86assembler that uses the Intel syntax for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Beginning with MASM 8.0, there are two versions of the assembler: One for 16-bit & 32-bit assembly sources, and another (ML64) for 64-bit sources only.
MASM is maintained by Microsoft, but since version 6.12 it has not been sold as a separate product. It is instead supplied with various Microsoft SDKs and C compilers. Recent versions of MASM are included with Microsoft Visual Studio.
History[edit]
The earliest versions of MASM date back to 1981.[1] They were sold either as the generic 'Microsoft Macro Assembler' for all x86 machines or as the OEM version specifically for IBM PCs. By Version 4.0, the IBM release was dropped. Up to Version 3.0, MASM was also bundled with a smaller companion assembler, ASM.EXE. This was intended for PCs with only 64k of memory and lacked some features of the full MASM, such as the ability to use code macros.
MS-DOS versions up to 4.x included Microsoft's LINK utility, which was designed to convert intermediate OBJ files generated by MASM and other compilers; however, as users who did not program had no use of the utility, it was moved to their compiler packages.
Version 4.0 added support for 286 instructions and also shorthand mnemonics for segment descriptors (.code, .data, etc.). Version 5.0 supported 386 instructions, but it could still only generate real mode executables.
Through version 5.0, MASM was available as an MS-DOS application only. Versions 5.1 and 6.0 were available as both MS-DOS and OS/2 applications.[2]
Version 6.0, released in 1992, added parameter passing with 'invoke' and some other high level-like constructs, in addition to the already existing high level-like records, among other things. By the end of the year, version 6.1A updated the memory management[how?][clarification needed] to be compatible with code produced by Visual C++. In 1993 full support for protected mode 32-bit applications and the Pentium instruction set was added. The MASM binary at that time was shipped as a 'bi-modal' DOS-extended binary (using the Phar Lap TNT DOS extender).
Versions 6.12 to 6.14 were implemented as patches for version 6.11. These patches changed the type of the binary to native PE format. Version 6.11 is the last version of MASM that will run under MS-DOS.
By the end of 1997, MASM fully supported Windows 95 and included some AMD-specific instructions.[3]
In 1999, Intel released macros for SIMD and MMX instructions, which were shortly thereafter supported natively by MASM. With the 6.15 release in 2000, Microsoft discontinued support for MASM as a separate product, instead subsuming it into the Visual Studio toolset. Though it was still compatible with Windows 98, current versions of Visual Studio were not.[3] Support for 64-bit processors was not added until the release of Visual Studio 2005, with MASM 8.0.
Microsoft Macro Assembler X64
After 25 June 2015, there are at least three different MASMs with the version number 14.00.23026. In Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise Edition, there is one 'amd64_x86' ml and two ml64s, 'x86_amd64' and 'amd64'. They run on different platforms targeting different platforms:
- amd64_x86: generates 64-bit code, runs in a Windows 32-bit environment
- x86_amd64: generates 32-bit code, runs in a Windows 64-bit environment
- amd64: generates 64-bit code, runs in a Windows 64-bit environment
Object module formats supported by MASM[edit]
Early versions of MASM generated object modules using the OMF format, which was used to create binaries for MS-DOS or OS/2.
Since version 6.1, MASM is able to produce object modules in the Portable Executable[4][5] (PE/COFF) format. PE/COFF is compatible with recent Microsoft C compilers, and object modules produced by either MASM or the C compiler can be routinely intermixed and linked into Win32 and Win64 binaries.
Assemblers compatible with MASM[edit]
Some other assemblers can assemble most code written for MASM, with the exception of more complex macros.
- Turbo Assembler (TASM) developed by Borland, later owned by Embarcadero, last updated in 2002, but still supplied with C++Builder and RAD Studio.
- JWASM Macro Assembler, licensed under the Sybase Open Watcom EULA.
- Pelle's Macro Assembler, a component of the Pelles C development environment.
- UASM is a free MASM-compatible assembler based on JWasm.
Mixed language programming support[edit]
Documentation for 1987's version 5.1 included support for 'Microsoft BASIC, C, FORTRAN, Pascal.'[6]
Licensing issues[edit]
Using MASM for operating system development is not prohibited in the license agreement although you may sometimes hear that. This is because people often confuse the MASM and MASM32 licenses; they are two unrelated projects.
Masm Download For Windows 10
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Watt, Peggy; Christine McGeever (January 7, 1985). 'Macintosh Vs. IBM PC At One Year'. InfoWorld. Vol. 7 no. 1. pp. 15–16. ISSN0199-6649. The IBM PC Macro Assembler was released in December 1981.
- ^Marshall, Martin (April 29, 1991). 'Macro Assembler Update Adds High-Level Features'. InfoWorld. Vol. 13 no. 17. p. 21. ISSN0199-6649.
- ^ abR. E. Harvey (2007). 'Assemblers'. Archived from the original on 16 February 2008. Retrieved 4 February 2010.
- ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2009-01-26. Retrieved 2008-06-24.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- ^'WHDC White Papers and Documentation'. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
- ^Microsoft Macro Assembler 5.1, Mixed-Language Programming Guide. p. 3.
External links[edit]
Masm Assembler Download
I'll continue to explore the stack frame and how to set it up and tear it down, because I want to understand perfectly how various calling conventions work. For now I can barely write a bubble sort, so I don't want to get too deep, too soon.
The thing I'm curious about is why there aren't 20 or 30 registers that do nothing but store a value, but can quickly be swapped into the regular working registers in 1 cycle? I guess most local variables will probably be in cache and I don't believe cache takes all that long to load into a register... so it probably wouldn't make much of a difference.
The things I find the hardest - not terribly hard, but modestly hard - so far have been:
- addressing modes that involve more than 1 item... register + offset, etc.
- stack frames
- cache (I consider this an advanced subject - how to setup stuff to optimize cache access)
Everything else has been easy enough. The biggest pain is always pushing registers onto the stack and then popping them off because there are so few. Regardless I'm loving assembly language. It is clearing up a lot of mysteries for me.