Windows 3.x (ahhhhh, the glory days)

[Hector Headgear]

I miss the good 'ol days when Microsoft was actually Trying to be a successful company.
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Did windows 3.x ever have this crap?  I remember it well, seeing as how I used it up until 99.  It had been so long since I had used dos, I almost forgot how to rig up a cd-rom dos driver.
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OT:  DOes anyone know where the hell i could get a goodasm tutorial?

[voidmain]

ASM was the good old days. In the DOS world I thought Borland's TASM (Turbo Assembler) was the best. I have a couple of good books on TASM and I used to do some video card programming with it etc.. What assembler do you plan to use and on what OS?

[Hector Headgear]

Well, I used to use TASM as well... I think I'll start up with that again.  The only problem is, I can't find any free information on stuff like how to advance the source index 1 per loop, and the stuff like that.  I mean, I am such a complete newbie at ASM, that the only program I've written was the classic "Hello, world!" message.

I hope to eventually write a program that will interface to an X10 transmitter on my com port.  I figure, why spend 20 bucks on a limited program when you can write your own, better program for free?

I have win95 (i know, bad place to post about this   ) and like 16bit dos assembly.

If you know of any free, online resources for this (that actually take you through the majority of the information) let me know.
 [email protected]?subject=ASM

[voidmain]

This may be a stupid question but why would you need to use ASM to write this X10 app?  Why not use C, or any other language for that matter?  With C, if you needed to include some low level ASM you can but the language is a lot easier.  I can't imagine you need to include any ASM in your code for this.  Here is an interesting file on the X10 protocol:

http://www.smarthome.com/manuals/protocol.txt

And this page also suggests you can use just about any language of your choice:

http://www.smarthome.com/1150.html

And you can download a DOS/WIN version of GNU C (GCC) for free.

[ January 21, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Centurian]

Hey,

Go to http://www.programmersheaven.com/
you will find everything from tutorials and code snippets to a wide variety compilers.

Unless your a glutton for punishment though I would certainly not use asm. I once wrote a program that displayed a bird flying around the screen in asm. Took me about a week I rewrote it later in Pascal in 2 hours. Believe me ANY language is easier to use than ASM. Unless there is a specific reason to use ASM (usually speed) then by all means use another language. Also as VoidMain mentioned you can add ASM to C++ code should you require it.

Later
Centurian

[Hector Headgear]

Well, my main reason for using ASM is quite simple:

--FREE!

But now, you tell me I can get a C compiler for free?  That would be great.  And also, as the author of the book I am reading on ASM (I found one) says (And I agree) :"The only reason people say ASM is so hard is because they haven't had experience with it.  Remember how hard it was to learn your first HLL?  It is just a different format, and like learning a new oral language, that is hard."

Anyway, If I can do this X10 project without assembly, I will.  But I am still going to learn it.  I figured I would need it due to the fact of the circuitry that need to be controlled boolean-ly.  If I can do that with a free C compiler, i think i'll do just that.    

Anyway, I'm rambling so I'll shut up now.

lates,
HH

[Hector Headgear]

Also:  I have the "Firecracker" CM17A module, not the old obsolete interface.

[voidmain]

I certainly don't want to discourage you from learning ASM, you will certainly be a leg up on most everyone else if you do.  You have the "ultimate" in control with ASM.  It's not that it's harder, it's just that it's a lower level language (the bottom of the heap next to object code but we won't go there).  Because of that, you have to do 10 times as much work to get a single function built in to a language like C.  And C is middle level between ASM and languages like Pascal and Basic.  It's a nice medium.

Oh, and another thing about ASM. It is fairly architecture/platform specific (x86 ASM is not the same as PPC ASM etc).  C is "fairly" platform independent/portable. And 99%+ of the best OS in the world is written using it.

As far as your free C compiler go here:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc.html

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[badkarma]

http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/ contains gcc, a really good *free* C compiler, the only drawback is that your compiled programs need a cygwin dll (I think I read that this can be circumvented but I don't know how since I don't use cygwin   )