Short:    PhxAss V4.20 68xxx Macro Assembler
Author:   frank@phoenix.owl.de (Frank Wille, Phoenix/Phantasm)
Uploader: fwille@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Type:     dev/asm

This archive contains the Assembler PhxAss V4.20 and the Linker
PhxLnk V4.17.

*** PHXASS ***
PhxAss V4.20 is a highly optimizing macro assembler for Motorola's 680x0
CPUs, 6888x FPUs and 68851 MMU (of course, the 030, 040 and 060 MMUs are
also supported). It requires OS2.04 (V37) and 1 MB RAM as minimum.

Most important features:
o Fast: 15000-30000 lines per minute with standard Amigas, 50000-350000
  with A4000/040.
o Resident.
o Symbolic and Source Level Debugging.
o Automatic generation of executables (if possible).
o Creates relocatable Amiga-DOS objects or absolute code (written into
  a file (raw or Motorola S-Format), into memory or directly onto disk).
o Small Code and Small Data support (also support for __MERGED sections).
o Listing file, Cross Reference Listing, Equates file.
o Complete floating point support: You may use complex floating point
  expressions, including float functions (sine, logarithm, square root,
  power, etc.), everywhere in your source, e.g. defining float EQUates or
  SETs.
o Switches for nine different optimizations.
o Locale symbols (xxx$ and .xxx type).
o Up to 36 macro parameters.
o Support for Motorola's old and new operand style (even in 68000 mode).
o locale.library usage (english, german, swedish, italian, danish and
  french ).
o Nearly all directives of the most popular assemblers like Seka, DevPac or
  AS (Aztec) are supported. Example: INCBIN, INCDIR, CODE_C, REPT, RS,
  RSRESET, EQUR, REG, OFFSET, XDEF, XREF, PUBLIC, ...
o Further development and support is guaranteed for years, because I'll
  *never* change my system (Amiga forever!).
o Finally: Although Shareware, there are no disabled functions in PhxAss!

You will find four different versions of PhxAss in this distribution:
1. PhxAss: The standard 680x0,FPU,MMU macro assembler.
2. SmallPhxAss: This is a 68000-only version without floating point support.
3. FreePhxAss: This program is FREEWARE! It is intended for developers of
    PD-Compilers, who want to include PhxAss in their compiler package.
4. GigaPhxAss: Identical to PhxAss, but source codes are not limited to
    65535 lines. Quite useful for assembling huge Reassembler outputs.

CHANGES SINCE PHXASS V4.18 (last Aminet release):
Fixed Bugs:
o Long range branches, which were explicitely defined as Byte branches,
  were made to Word instead Long. This caused an error in the following
  branch optimizations.
o Distance shifts didn't work with equates (EQU).
o Distance shifts didn't get the correct value in the listing file.
o Forgot to close two math-libraries during clean-up.
o Usage of scaling in 68000 mode will generate an error message now.
o ASL will be optimized to ADD by (n)ormal optimization (if possible).
o \@ generates '_000' labels instead '000'. So you will be no longer
  forced to change you exec/types.i include file.
o It is possible again, to create an object file which contains only
  absolute XDEFs. It was already possible before v4.00, I think. ;)
o Now you will get an error message, when a symbol inside a macro was
  defined twice.
o When both Data and Bss sections were empty in small data mode, PhxAss
  generated an object file with 65535 size fields in the hunk header.

New Features:
o Relocatable symbols will be suffixed by a ' in the listing file.
o SECTION allows a numerical third parameter to select the type of the
  section (should be $40000000 or $80000000, of course!).
o Freeware-PhxAss assembles 68030-060, FPU and MMU code too.
o Dutch catalog.
o EQUR works with register symbols.
o New directive FREG. It's like REG, but for the FPU registers. So FMOVEMs
  without any registers, which could be generated by a compiler, can be
  removed by optimization.
o Support for PHXOPTIONS option files, which are created by PhxOpts from
  Johan Johanssen. PhxOpts offers a GUI for presetting the options of
  PhxAss. But of course, the command line options have still priority.
o PHXASSINC has moved to ENV:PhxAss/ like the global PHXOPTIONS.
o New directives SAVE and RESTORE to save name and type of the current
  section. Useful in macros.


*** PHXLNK ***
PhxLnk is FREEWARE and supports all features of a standard Amiga-DOS linker
(like BLink), except of overlay hunks and automatic link vectors (ALV).

Implemented functions:
o Links object files and libraries (SAS/C extended libraries too)
o Sections can be forced to Chip-memory
o Small Code, Small Data
o SAS/C-Blink Small Data compatibility available
o '_MERGED' sections are recognized automatically (and coalesced like
  Small Data sections)
o Symbolic and Source Level Debugging (PowerVisor compatibility included)
o Debug blocks are removed on request
o Deletes empty sections
o Zero bytes at the end of a section will be deleted and appear in the
  HUNK_HEADER block only
o User may define absolute external symbols
o Generates HUNK_RELOC32SHORT blocks by default

CHANGES SINCE PHXLNK V4.17 (last Aminet release):
o Dutch catalog.