CHAPTER 14   RELEASE HISTORY OF A86                     14-1       


V2.10  June 1986.  Initial public release of the MSDOS version of 
       A86.  The last previous version ran under the Xenix 
       operating system on the Altos series of computers.  
       Upgrades from that previous version included: 

       * cleaning up the command invocation to allow default 
         output files 
       * insertion of full error messages, not just number codes 
       * automatic removal of error messages upon reassembly 
       * addition of features for compatibility with Microsoft's 
         assembler (PTR, LABEL, PROC, etc.) 
       * provision for ignoring certain keywords, for 
         compatibility (ASSUME, PAGE, SUBTTL, PUBLIC, EXTRN, 
         etc.) 

V2.11  June 1986.  A very slight upgrade.  The RADIX command was 
       added, a couple of minor bugs were fixed, and formfeeds 
       were put into the documentation. 

V2.12  Test release for Alan Tschetter and Charlotte Wood

V2.13  July 1986.  Quick-fix release for a user who wanted A86 to 
       run on his 256K machine.  I had foolishly assumed that 
       everyone had 512K by now. This release erroneously 
       mentions a "-s" option in the blurb that you get when you 
       type "a86" by itself.  No such option exists; I realized 
       that the small-memory adjustment could be made 
       automatically; and I forgot to remove the message. 

V2.14  Test release for Andy Harrington

V2.15  August 1986.  Implemented COMMENT directive for 
       compatibility; added floating-point instruction set and DQ 
       and DT directives; fixed bugs. 

V2.16  August 1986.  Made internal changes to accommodate forward-
       referencing in D86's patch-memory mode. 

V2.17  Test release for Wang

V2.18  November 1986.  Fixed 3 bugs: (1) DB,DW,DD,DQ,DT 
       directives in structures or the data segment caused a byte 
       of memory to be written to the object buffer (or in short-
       memory systems, possibly to the source buffer).  I have 
       fixed this serious bug, and also rearranged things so that 
       any future bugs of the same type cannot affect the source 
       file.  (2) "MOV AX,BX," -- the trailing comma was not 
       flagged, and caused spurious extra code to be generated.  
       (3) Named STRUC followed by unnamed ENDS did not work 
       correctly. 

V2.90  March 1987.  Test release for .OBJ support.
                                                        14-2
V3.00  April 1987.  Major upgrade:
       * added support for linkable .OBJ files
       * added pagination and indexing to manual
       * added long constants and floating-point constants
       * added A86LIB library tool and A86 support
       * added ability to forward-reference variables
       * added ability to add to and index forward references
       * added 286 protected-mode instructions
       * added NEC-specific instructions
       * added option not to insert errors in source
       * added option for long forward JMP for local labels
       * added switch for default decimal
       * added "=" equate compatibility feature
       * added double-quoted strings compatibility feature
       * underscores allowed within numbers
       * leading $ and ? allowed in symbols, for compatibility
       * parentheses no long required for most DUP right operands
       * less type-checking for pointer arithmetic; compatibility
       * numerous minor bug fixes

V3.01  April 1987.  Some bug fixes and minor enhancements:
       * original file had been renamed to no extension, not OLD
       * some forward-reference and OBJ operands didn't work
       * file name reporting in undefineds-list was sometimes off
       * wider display columns, for longer LIB source file names
       * segment overrides outlawed in 3-operand MOV
       * forward references outlawed in numeric-operand INC/DEC
       * add support for near jumps between OBJ segments
       * add "S" suppress-symtab and "C" case-sensitivity switches

V3.02  May 1987.  Some bug fixes:
       * Jc $+5 altered to be MASM-compatible
       * MOV B[1+BX],0 now works
       * fixed a serious bug: OBJ fixup records were not being 
           generated in some multiple-segment modules

V3.03  May 1987.  Bug fixes:
       * A previous bug-fix had caused A86 to issue errors for 
         MASM directives beginning with a period, that A86 should 
         ignore. An embarrassing side-effect was that when this 
         happened, all subsequent lines containing symbols had 
         errors, as well!  V3.03 fixes all this. 
       * XREF did not recognize the double-quote mark for strings

V3.04  May 1987.  Bug fix: if a forward reference to a variable 
       had an indexing register as well, then the indexing 
       register became part of the definition of the variable, 
       and appeared in subsequent usages of the variable, even 
       when not explicitly given.