David Noon wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:

MB> However, you have an endian bug here, since the image 
MB> equivalent of "DB  02h,0FDh" is correctly "DW 0FD02h".

 DN> Hi Mike,

 DN> My copy of MASM doesn't reverse bytes when coding in hex.
 DN> Neither did BCAF 3.1, which uses TASM.

 DN> I converted these instructions into a clone of EXIT_VDM.COM.
 DN> I attach an assembly listing of this instruction sequence
 DN> from MASM 6.11. The DW in question is at location 0103.

 DN> Perhaps Microsoft, Borland and I are all wrong.

No, it's just you!  :-)

 DN> Regards

 DN> Dave
 DN> 

 DN> ============================================================

 DN> Microsoft (R) Macro Assembler Version 6.11               
 DN> 06/06/96 23:17:29 EXIT_VMB.ASM              Page 1 - 1


 DN>                                 ; Cobbled version of
 DN> EXIT_VDM.COM, called EXIT_VMB.COM
 DN>                                     .MODEL   TINY
 DN>  0000                               .CODE
 DN>                                     .STARTUP
 DN>  0100                          *{at}Startup:
 DN>  0100   3   33 C0                    XOR     AX,AX
 DN>  0102   2   F4                       HLT
 DN>  0103  02FD                          DW      02FDH
 DN>                                     .EXIT
 DN>  0105   4   B4 4C              *     mov   ah, 04Ch
 DN>  0107  51   CD 21              *     int   021h
 DN>                                      END

 DN> ============================================================

I don't know how to break the news to you, but "02FDh" appears as
"02FDh" in the listing output of the assembler for human
convenience.  "Well," the assembler thinks, "the programmer
wrote '02FDh,' so he expects to see '02FDh.'"

In reality, the bytes are ordered in memory as "FD 02" by the
assembler.  Note that the listing subtly signals this by leaving no space
between the bytes.

C:\OS2\MDOS>debug exit_vdm.com
-u100,106
0EB1:0100 33C0          XOR     AX,AX
0EB1:0102 F4            HLT
0EB1:0103 02FD          ADD     BH,CH
0EB1:0105 CD20          INT     20
-d100,106
0EB1:0100  33 C0 F4 02 FD CD 20                              3.....
-a103
0EB1:0103 dw fd02
0EB1:0105
-u100,106
0EB1:0100 33C0          XOR     AX,AX
0EB1:0102 F4            HLT
0EB1:0103 02FD          ADD     BH,CH
0EB1:0105 CD20          INT     20
-d100,106
0EB1:0100  33 C0 F4 02 FD CD 20                              3.....

Junk is produced by doing it the other way:

-a103
0EB1:0103 dw 02fd
0EB1:0105
-u100,106
0EB1:0100 33C0          XOR     AX,AX
0EB1:0102 F4            HLT
0EB1:0103 FD            STD
0EB1:0104 02CD          ADD     CL,CH
0EB1:0106 206572        AND     [DI+72],AH
-d100,106
0EB1:0100  33 C0 F4 FD 02 CD 20                              3.....

I encourage you to load your own COM file under DEBUG and look at the raw
bytes with the "d" command in order to convince yourself.
 
-- Mike


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