x86 Assembly Language FAQ - Microsoft MASM
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From: Benjamin David Lunt on 3 Feb 2010 01:49 X-Disclaimer: Approval for *.answers is based on form, not content. Approved: news-answers-request(a)MIT.EDU Followup-To: alt.lang.asm,comp.lang.asm.x86 Organization: Forever Young Software Distribution: world Expires: Thur, 22 Jan 2015 23:59:59 GMT Summary: This is the FAQ for the x86 Assembly Language programmers for the alt.lang.asm and comp.lang.asm.x86 newsgroups. This particular section of the FAQ contains x86 assembly information specific to the Microsoft MASM assembler. Keywords: x86 Assembly Language ASM FAQ Microsoft MASM Archive-Name: assembly-language/x86/microsoft Posting-Frequency: monthly (21st of every month) Last-modified: 2004/03/03 ------------------------------ Subject: 1. Introduction and Intent This is the x86 Assembly Language FAQ for the comp.lang.asm.x86 and alt.lang.asm newsgroups. This FAQ is posted monthly on or about the 21st of the month to both newsgroups and news.answers, alt.answers and comp.answers. It also is archived at the normal FAQ archival site, ftp://rtfm.mit.edu and to SimTel and its mirror sites in the msdos/info directory and Garbo and its mirrors in the pc/doc-net directory. When uploaded to SimTel or Garbo, the filenames are asmxxyyz.zip, where xx is the two digit year, yy is the number of the month and z is t for text or h for HTML format. Lastly, the current version is available from my web page: http://www.fysnet.net/faq/index.htm Zipped down as text files: http://www.fysnet.net/faq/asmfaq.zip Zipped down as HTML documents: http://www.fysnet.net/faq/asmfaqh.zip Currently, this FAQ is broken into six sections. The following are the section filenames and the scope of each section of the FAQ. assembly-language/x86/general/part1 - This is the basic portion of the FAQ that contains information of interest to all assembly language programmers. In general, the information contained in this portion of the FAQ is not specific to any particular assembler. assembly-language/x86/general/part2 - This is a continuation of the above FAQ. assembly-language/x86/general/part3 - This is a continuation of the above FAQ. assembly-language/x86/microsoft - This portion of the FAQ contains information specific for the Microsoft MASM. assembly-language/x86/borland - This portion of the FAQ contains information specific for the Borland TASM. assembly-language/x86/a86 - This portion of the FAQ contains information specific for the Shareware A86 Assembler and D86 Debugger. The scope and content of this FAQ is to go beyond just answering the frequently asked questions. I am including pointers to assembly language treasure troves that are hidden on the Internet. I believe that this will enhance the FAQ's value not only to the novices but also to the old hands. For the ease of determining what has changed since the last FAQ, the Table of Contents will have "REVISED" at the end of the subject line for all revised subjects. If more than one FAQ revision has been missed, the "Last Changed:" entry at the end of each subject can be used to determine which subjects have been revised during the intervening period. The information in this FAQ is free for all to use as long as you acknowledge the source. This FAQ can be reproduced in part or in its entirety as long as the copyright is included. This FAQ can be made available on public servers, like ftp, gopher or WWW servers. Please do not modify the file, such as converting it into some other format, without prior permission of the author. All references to files and locations are in Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) format. Some web browser will be able to use these URLs directly as hot links. If the format is not clear to you, get RFC 1738. It is available from: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1738.html Suggestions for changes and comments are always welcome. They can be posted to either newsgroup or e-mailed directly to me. This FAQ was created and maintained by Raymond Moon before I took it over. Many thanks to Ray for the effort in creating this FAQ. Even though most of the links and names have been changed to mine, the credit still goes to Ray for the work he did. Thanks Ray. Author: Benjamin David Lunt, fys_at_fysnet.net Copyright 2004 - Forever Young Software ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Last Changed: 3 Mar 2004 Return to the Table Of Contents ------------------------------ Subject: 2. Table Of Contents 1. Introduction and Intent 2. Table Of Contents 3. How to Get the Patch for MASM 6.11 4. What is and How to Access the Microsoft Knowledge Base 5. Pentium Instruction Macros 6. Microsoft's MASM Newsgroup 7. MASM Information Available At www.microsoft.com 8. How to Get the Patch for MASM 6.12, 6.13 and 6.14 9. MASM Free From Microsoft 10. Acknowledgments [General][MASM][TASM][A86/D86] ------------------------------ Subject: 3. How to Get the Patch for MASM 6.11 There is a patch available from Microsoft for MASM 6.11. This patch converts MASM 6.11 or 6.11a into the latest version MASM 6.11d. This patch will not work on MASM 6.11c. To obtain this patch: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/ML611D.EXE ML611D.EXE is a self-extracting file which when executed will create the following files: ERRMSG.TXT PATCH.RTP H2INC.EXE PATCH.RTD H2INC.ERR README.TXT ML611D.TXT SUPPORT.TXT PATCH.EXE All the instructions for installing the patch are contained in ML611D.TXT. Contributor: Raymond Moon, raymoon(a)moonware.dgsys.com Last Changed: 20 Mar 98 Return to the Table Of Contents ------------------------------ Subject: 4. What is and How to Access the Microsoft Knowledge Base 4.1 WHAT IS THE MICROSOFT KNOWLEDGE BASE The Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) is a collection of articles that is maintained and used by the Microsoft Support personnel to answer customer questions. Included in the Knowledge Base are detailed how-to articles, answers to technical support questions, bug lists, fix lists, and documentation errors. This Knowledge Base is available to all on Microsoft's Internet Node. An index of all the articles is available in a file, index.txt. 4.2 HOW TO OBTAIN INDEX.TXT The index file has been removed. However, I have found that some, if not all of the KB articles are still available. For example, the Q106399 stated below can be found at: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/MISC/KB/en-us/106/399.HTM Notice that if you go to ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/MISC/KB/en-us/ you can still find the articles in question. 4.3 FILE FORMAT OF INDEX.TXT The format of this file consists of three columns. Column One is the file type with the following meanings: FIX - Bug Fix DOCERR - Documentation Error INF - Information PRB - Problem BUG - Bug Column Two is the path and file name in the following format: Qxxxyzz where: The part, 'Qxxx', is Q followed by two or three numbers and represents the first subdirectory under the subdirectory, The part, 'y', is the next subdirectory under Qxxx, and The part, 'zz', when combined with .txt' is the filename. ****WARNING**** Some of the Qs are uppercase and some are lower case. Unlike DOS, the filenames and directory names are case sensitive. Column Three is a short description of the file. 4.4 GETTING FILES You can get all the files from the /developr/masm/kb directory without navigating this very strange directory structure by using the path in the get command. As an example, let's say you want Q106399, a very useful file if you use Visual C++ (see below). Using the parsing rules above, you can use the following get command: get q106/3/99.txt 4.5 HOW TO ACCESS USING WWW Microsoft has removed the MASM option from the their www KB search. 4.6 SOME EXAMPLE FILES FROM THE MICROSOFT KNOWLEDGE BASE Q86815 Mixed C and MASM with MASM Main Language, No C Run-Time Q86816 Mixed C and MASM with MASM Main Language, C Run-Time Q101264 Assembling Code Developed for MASM 5.x with MASM 6.x Q106399 Using the Visual Workbench with MASM Q110598 Spontaneous Assembly and MASM 6.11 Errors Q123729 Accessing Command Line Arguments I have found Q106399 particularly helpful since I am really upset that Microsoft did not include direct support of MASM from within the Visual Workbench. Contributor: Raymond Moon, raymoon(a)moonware.dgsys.com Last Changed: 25 Jan 2010 Return to the Table Of Contents ------------------------------ Subject 5. Pentium Instruction Macros Macros that implement the new instructions available with the Pentium processor are available from Intel. ftp://ftp.intel.com/pub/IAL/pentium/p5masm.mac [Broken] This link has been removed. My guess is that you know longer need these macros since most modern assemblers support them. The new macros are: CMPXCHG8B - Compare and exchange eight bytes CPUID - CPU Identification RDTSC - Read Time Stamp Counter MOVTOCR4 - Move reg to CR4 MOVFROMCR4 - Move CR4 to reg RDMSR - Read Model Specific Register WRMSR - Write Model Specific Register RSM - Resume from SMM Contributor: Raymond Moon, raymoon(a)moonware.dgsys.com Last Changed: 25 Jan 2010 Return to the Table Of Contents ------------------------------ Subject 6. Microsoft's MASM Newsgroup Microsoft has create a whole family of newsgroups devoted to their products. One of these new newsgroups is devoted to MASM. Its URL is news:msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.masm Contributor: Raymond Moon, raymoon(a)moonware.dgsys.com Last Changed: 20 Apr 97 Return to the Table Of Contents ------------------------------ Subject 7. MASM Information Available At www.microsoft.com Microsoft doesn't support MASM like it use to. Microsoft's web site finally has a few pages to MASM. This overview page has links to the following areas: features, system requirements, evaluation tools, standard, academic and volume pricing, FAQ, and support policies. The basic URL is: http://www.microsoft.com/catalog/display.asp?subid=22&site=239&pg=1 [Broken] Contributor: Raymond Moon, raymoon(a)moonware.dgsys.com Last Changed: 18 Mar 2000 Return to the Table Of Contents ------------------------------ Subject 8. How to Get the Patches for MASM 6.12, 6.13 and 6.14 There are patches available to patch MASM 6.11 to update for support Pentium Pro and MMX instructions (Version 6.12) and AMD 3D instructions (Version 6.13). Numerous bug fixes have been added. You do not need to download each, ml613.exe contains everything to upgrade your 6.11, 6.11a or 6.11d. Again, these patches will not upgrade MASM 6.11c ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/ML612.EXE ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/ML613.EXE ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/ML614.EXE Contributor: Raymond Moon, raymoon(a)moonware.dgsys.com Last Changed: 18 Mar 2000 Return to the Table Of Contents ------------------------------ Subject 9. MASM Free From Microsoft 9.1 WHERE TO GET MASM MASM Version 6.11d is available on the Windows 98 Driver Developer Kit. While the whole file is 18+ Meg file. It can be downloaded in parts. You will need two files. The URLs are: http://www.microsoft.com/ddk/download/98/BINS_DDK.EXE (2.9 MBytes) http://www.microsoft.com/ddk/download/98/98SETUP.EXE (1.9 MBytes) After downloading each file, execute them to extract the files. Then run the setup program. MASM is the ml.exe file in the 98ddk/bin/win98 directory. It is version 6.11d that can be patched to 6.14. Update: Unfortunetly, it looks as if Microsoft doesn't support that file anymore. However, if you do a google search for BINS_DDK.EXE, you will find other sites that have this file. I may not be a legal download, though. You can get the latest Driver Development Kit from microsoft, and it may have the latest version of MASM in it. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/wdk/default.mspx which should lead you to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2105564e-1a9a-4bf4-8d74-ec5b52da3d00&displaylang=en 9.2 WHAT THIS MASM IS NOT This is not the same as purchasing MASM product. The linker is 32 bit and will not create 16-bit DOS programs. Also, the Programmer's Work Bench nor CodeView for debugging are included in the full DDK. NOTE: The linker that comes with the DDK will not produce 16-bit applications for DOS. To do this, you must have Microsoft's Linker version 5.63 that is available from Microsoft's FTP site: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/lnk563.exe Contributor: Raymond Moon, raymoon(a)moonware.dgsys.com Last Changed: 25 Jan 2010 Return to the Table Of Contents ------------------------------ Subject: 10. Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge all the people who have assisted me or any of the contributors. For their time and effort, this FAQ is a better product. Barry Brey, Daniel Cardenas, Ville Muikkula and Kevin Weinrich. Return to the Table Of Contents |