Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!hedrick
From: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Microsoft Assembler
Message-ID: <714@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 1 Feb 88 22:49:10 GMT
References: <1428@homxb.UUCP> <271@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 15

>Microsoft don't feel any pressure from competing products.  Maybe if
>Borland would come out with a Turbo assembler that *did* implement these
>algorithms, then Microsoft would get on the ball.

There is at least one competing assembler.  Mark Williams' C includes
its own assembler, loader, librarian, etc.  The whole package ("Let's
C") is less expensive than the Microsoft assembler.  This assembler is
based on Unix technology, and I believe does optimize jumps.  However
I have also had trouble getting it to compile some formats of call and
jump far.  (In general the Mark Williams technology is designed for
the small model.  If you pay $500, they'll give you a version of the
package where the C can handle the large model, but code compiled that
way has to be handled by the normal MSDOS loader.  It's not in the
format that their loader, etc., handles, and can't be debugged with
their debugger.)