V22.0201.002, Machine Organization I, Fall 97
TURBO ASSEMBLER INFORMATION
Introduction
The Turbo Assembler from Borland
is called TASM. This software
is assumed for this class, and provided in the PC labs.
You can purchase your own copy from the NYU bookstore
for about $75 (for cheaper sources,
look at the course homepage under "other information").
MASM stand for Microsoft Assembler. It is very similar
to TASM, and it is the assembler assumed in the text book.
Moreover, TASM has a mode that makes it emulates MASM.
Associated with assemblers are typically two other
pieces of software called the linker
and debugger. The linker and debugger that
comes with TASM are called TLINK and TD, respectively.
The linker and debugger that comes with MASM are
called LINK and CODEVIEW (or, DEBUG, the DOS version
of the debugger), respectively.
Appendix E in the textbook describes LINK, CODEVIEW and DEBUG.
It is useful to to read this even if you are working
with TASM.
What are the functions of the assembler and
linker?
Basically, the assembler converts symbolic addresses
into concrete addresses, and translates assembly
instructions into machine instructions (essentially, bytes).
But these ``concrete'' addresses are still not fully resolved
because it may depend on where the instructions and data
are physically loaded in the machine. The linker
provides such information. The linker is also
used to ``link'' together several modules into one
big program (this is the reason for the linker's name!).
First Steps
You should read section 4.10 (p.70) of the textbook for
this. There are 4 essential steps from creating
an assembly program to producing an executable code.
- Use any text editor to create a source program.
This file normally has name that ends with .asm.
For example, hw1.asm might be appropriate for homework 1.
A very simple editor which is available from DOS is called
edit. You can begin editing by typing
the following at the DOS prompt (indicated here by :>):
:> edit hw1.asm
- Use TASM to convert the source program into an object file.
The name of an object file normally ends with .obj.
To do this, type the following at the DOS prompt:
:> tasm hw1
This produces the file hw1.obj from the file hw1.asm.
- Use the linker TLINK to link your file(s) together
into an executable file. In this case, you have
only one file (hw1.obj) to link. The name of
the executable file normally ends with .exe.
For our example, you type the follwing at the DOS prompt:
:> tlink hw1
This produces the executable file called hw1.exe.
- Finally, you can run (or execute) the executable file:
:> hw1
YOU NOW HAVE THE ESSENTIALS FOR DOING HOMEWORK 1.
If you want information for debugging, click
HERE
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