A86 macro assembler, V4.00                 December 30, 1994
Copyright 1986--1994 Eric Isaacson.
All rights reserved.

Eric Isaacson Software       Visa/MC/Amex accepted
416 E. University Ave.       1-812-339-1811
Bloomington, IN 47401-4739

See the text file A01.DOC for permissions/restrictions.

This package is a complete assembly-language compiler for the 
IBM-PC, together with a complete manual.  Please upload it to 
bulletin boards, and give it to user groups, computer 
departments in schools, and anyone else you think might be 
interested in writing assembly-language programs for Intel 86-
family microprocessors. 

You need to read the manual to use this program -- it's 
just too complex to be self-explanatory.  The file A02.DOC
takes you through a trial demonstration. 


What's New

This is the "official release" of A86 with major new features,
although I made an "unofficial release" (versions V3.7x) with
these features earlier in the year.

Let's cover the INCOMPATIBILITIES first, so you will know
where to tweak your existing code: 

* Error messages in A86 now have a slightly different format (on 
  their own line with a pointer to the error location). If you 
  have any source code lying around with old-format error 
  messages, get rid of the messages before reassembling with 
  this new version -- this version cannot handle them. 

* I have changed the L switch to the G (code Generation) switch 
  to prepare for L becoming a Listing-control switch. I have 
  also changed the X switch to +G16, to prepare for X becoming 
  the XRF control switch.  If you have any batch files or A86 
  environment-flag settings with +L or +X in them, change them 
  to +G for this new version. 

* The DATA SEGMENT now has a default ORG value of END; that is, 
  it starts at the end of your program, unless you have an ORG 
  otherwise.  V3.20--V3.22 of A86 outlawed ORGless DATA segments,
  in anticipation of this feature.  Versions before that had a
  default ORG of 0 -- if you have source code written for a 
  pre-V3.20 version of A86, make sure you put ORG 0 at the start
  of the first DATA SEGMENT if it was ORG-less. 

Other new features include an INCLUDE directive (Chapter 9), a 
listing facility (Chapters 3 and 13), END operand value (Chapter 
9), pulling XREF and EXMAC functions into the assembler (Chapter 
13), operand to EVEN (Chapter 9), the removal of the limit on 
the length of a source file, the removal of most restrictions on 
forward-references within expressions, the ability to ORG in the 
DATA segment and structures to a forward-reference value, the 
REF and DEF operators (Chapter 9), the K numeric base (Chapter 
10), numeric operands to STOSx and MOVSx (Chapter 5), and macros 
in an A86LIB library (Chapter 13).

I also have an A386 assembler and D386 debugger, available only
if you register BOTH A86 and D86.  They cover all instructions
up through the Pentium, although at this writing I do not yet
have 32-bit memory indexing and 32-bit protected-mode segments
implemented.  Chapter 6 of the A86 manual describes all the new
A386 instructions and instruction forms.


How to Get Everything

If you have downloaded the A86Vxxx.ZIP file from a BBS, you need
only make a subdirectory on your hard drive, make that the
current subdirectory, then run the program PKUNZIP or PCUNZIP
followed by the name of the ZIP file.  The program will "unzip"
(decompress) all the files of the package into your subdirectory.

There is an associated debugger, in a file D86Vxxx.ZIP, that you
may wish to look for in the same sources from which you received
this A86 package.