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1 This is a distribution of NASM, the Netwide Assembler. NASM is a
2 prototype general-purpose x86 assembler. It will currently output
3 flat-form binary files, a.out, COFF and ELF Unix object files,
4 Microsoft Win32 and 16-bit DOS object files, OS/2 object files, the
5 as86 object format, and a home-grown format called RDF.
7 Also included is NDISASM, a prototype x86 binary-file disassembler
8 which uses the same instruction table as NASM.
10 To install NASM on Linux, type `make', and then when it has finished
11 copy the file `nasm' (and maybe `ndisasm') to a directory on your
12 search path (maybe /usr/local/bin, or ~/bin if you don't have root
13 access). You may also want to copy the man page `nasm.1' (and maybe
14 `ndisasm.1') to somewhere sensible.
16 To install under DOS, if you don't need to rebuild from the sources,
17 you can just copy nasm.exe and ndisasm.exe (16-bit DOS executables),
18 or nasmw.exe and ndisasmw.exe (Win32 console applications - less
19 likely to run out of memory), to somewhere on your PATH.
21 To rebuild the DOS sources, various makefiles are provided:
23 - Makefile.dos, the one I build the standard 16-bit releases from,
24 designed for a hybrid system using Microsoft C and Borland Make
25 (don't ask why :-)
26 - Makefile.vc, for Microsoft Visual C++ compiling to a Win32
27 command-line application. This is the one I build the standard
28 Win32 release binaries from.
30 - Makefile.bor, for Borland C.
31 - Makefile.bc2, also for Borland C, contributed by Fox Cutter.
32 Reported to work better than Makefile.bor on some systems.
34 - Makefile.sc, for Symantec C++, compiling to a 32-bit extended DOS
35 executable.. Contributed by Mark Junker.
36 - Makefile.scw, also for Symantec C++, compiling to a Win32 command-
37 line application. Also contributed by Mark Junker.
39 - Makefile.wc, for Watcom C, compiling to a 32-bit extended DOS
40 executable. Contributed by Dominik Behr.
41 - Makefile.wcw, also for Watcom C, compiling to a Win32 command-
42 line application. Also contributed by Dominik Behr.
44 - Makefile.dj, for DJGPP, compiling to a 32-bit extended DOS
45 executable. Contributed by Dominik Behr.
47 - Makefile.lcc, for lcc-win32, compiling to a Win32 command line
48 application. (The lcc-win32 compiler and tools are available from
49 http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32/)
51 I can't guarantee that all of those makefiles work, because I don't
52 have all of those compilers. However, Makefile.dos and Makefile.vc
53 work on my system, and so do Makefile.bor and Makefile.bc2.
55 Be careful with Borland C: there have been various conflicting
56 reports about how reliable the Huge memory model is. If you try to
57 compile NASM in Large model, you may get DGROUP overflows due to the
58 vast quantity of data in the instruction tables. I've had reports
59 from some people that Huge model doesn't work at all (and also
60 reports from others that it works fine), so if you don't want to try
61 moving to Huge, you could try adding the option `-dc' to the
62 compiler command line instead, which causes string literals to be
63 moved from DGROUP to the code segments and might make Large model
64 start working. (Either solution works for me.)
66 Dominik Behr has also contributed the file misc/pmw.bat, which is a
67 batch file to turn the output from Makefile.wc (NASM.EXE and
68 NDISASM.EXE) into standalone executables incorporating Tran's
69 PMODE/W DOS extender, rather than depending on an external extender
70 program.
72 Some of the Windows makefiles produce executables called nasmw.exe
73 and ndisasmw.exe, and some don't. Be prepared for either...
75 If you're trying to unpack the DOS (.ZIP format) archive under Unix
76 instead of using the .tar.gz version, you can save some time by
77 doing `unzip -aL', which will convert the DOS-format text files to
78 Unix and also convert all names to lower case.
80 If you want to build a restricted version of NASM containing only
81 some of the object file formats, you can achieve this by adding
82 #defines to `outform.h' (see the file itself for documentation), or
83 equivalently by adding compiler command line options in the
84 Makefile.
86 There is a machine description file for the `LCC' retargetable C
87 compiler (version 3.6), in the directory `lcc', along with
88 instructions for its use. This means that NASM can now be used as
89 the code-generator back end for a useful C compiler.
91 Michael `Wuschel' Tippach has ported his DOS extender `WDOSX' to
92 enable it to work with the 32-bit binary files NASM can output: the
93 original extender and his port `WDOSX/N' are available from his web
94 page, http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/4493.
96 Matt Mastracci has written a document explaining how to write
97 assembly language modules in DJGPP programs using NASM: it's on his
98 web site at http://www.ucalgary.ca/~mmastrac/djgppasm.doc.
100 The `misc' directory contains `nasm.sl', a NASM editing mode for the
101 JED programmers' editor (see http://space.mit.edu/~davis/jed.html
102 for details about JED). The comment at the start of the file gives
103 instructions on how to install the mode. This directory also
104 contains a file (`magic') containing lines to add to /etc/magic on
105 Unix systems to allow the `file' command to recognise RDF files, and
106 a zip file (`exasm.zip') containing the necessary files for syntax
107 highlighting in the Aurora DOS editor. (The Aurora files were
108 contributed by <U993847220@aol.com>; I haven't tested them as I
109 don't have Aurora.)
111 The `rdoff' directory contains sources for a linker and loader for
112 the RDF object file format, to run under Linux, and also
113 documentation on the internal structure of RDF files.
115 For information about how you can distribute and use NASM, see the
116 file Licence. We were tempted to put NASM under the GPL, but decided
117 that in many ways it was too restrictive for developers.
119 For information about how to use NASM, see the various forms of
120 documentation in the `doc' directory: documentation is provided in
121 HTML, PostScript, plain text, Texinfo, and Windows Help formats. For
122 information about how to use NDISASM, see `ndisasm.doc'. For
123 information about the internal structure of NASM, see
124 `internal.doc'. (In particular, _please_ read `internal.doc' before
125 writing any code for us...)
127 The NASM web page is at http://www.web-sites.co.uk/Nasm/
129 Bug reports (and patches if you can) should be sent to
130 <jules@earthcorp.com> or <anakin@pobox.com>.
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133 This release prepared by the Nasm Development Team at:
135 <http://nasm.2y.net/>
137 Please visit us - our chat forum works :)
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