#: 8930 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    28-Dec-90  14:11:14
Sb: #8922-#68000 ASM Language
Fm: William Phelps 75100,265
To: Jack Crenshaw 72325,1327 (X)

Jack, 
Since this is the OS-9 Forum I have a question.  In your first message you said 
that you wanted to develop a relocatable assembler fo SK*DOS; do you want to 
write a normal assembler, or do you want reentrant PIC?  If you only want 
normal code we can fix that later 8-).
 
As you know, the reason that new assemblers still use mnemonics like BRA is 
compatability with existing code.  If you want that then you can write your 
assembler the same way.  If you do not care about that, then why not go all the 
way -- natural language interpretation.  How about a program written like this:
 
* This is a menu subroutine
window  load data register 0 with the screen width
        subtract 1 from data register 0
......
 
Notice how the code is self documenting and MUST do what is says it will do. 
In order to easily handle things like expressions, the assembler should RUN in 
a high level language.  Any variables used should also automatically be placed 
in the data area -- we don't want self-modifying code do we.
 
[continued next message]

There are 2 Replies.