From: raymoon@dgsys.com (Raymond Moon) Newsgroups: alt.lang.asm,comp.lang.asm.x86,news.answers,alt.answers,comp.answers Subject: x86 Assembly Language FAQ - Microsoft MASM Supersedes: <5h6e2s$b4q@reader1.news.act.net> Followup-To: alt.lang.asm,comp.lang.asm.x86 Date: 21 Apr 1997 21:24:51 GMT Organization: MoonWare Lines: 236 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Distribution: world Expires: Tue, 20 May 1997 23:59:59 GMT Message-ID: <5jglv3$ijs@news.dgsys.com> Reply-To: raymoon@moonware.dgsys.com Summary: This is the FAQ for the x86 Assembly Language programmers for the alt.lang.asm and comp.lang.asm.x86 newsgroups. This particular section of the FAQ contains x86 assembly information specific to the Microsoft MASM assembler. Keywords: x86 Assemby Language ASM FAQ Microsoft MASM Archive-Name: assembly-language/x86/microsoft Posting-Frequency: monthly (21st of every month) Last-modified: 1996/04/20 ------------------------------ Subject: 1. Introduction and Intent This is the x86 Assembly Language FAQ for the comp.lang.asm.x86 and alt.lang.asm newsgroups. This FAQ is posted monthly on or about the 21st of the month on both newsgroups and news.answers, alt.answers and comp.answers. It also is archived at the normal FAQ archival sites and the SimTel mirror sites in the msdos/info directory. Lastly, the current version is available from my web page as: As text files: http://www2.dgsys.com/~raymoon/faq/asmfaq.zip As html documents: http://www2.dgsys.com/~raymoon/faq/asmfaqh.zip Currently, this FAQ is broken into six sections. The following are the section filenames and the scope of each section of the FAQ. assembly-language/x86/general/part1 - This is the basic portion of the FAQ that contains information of interest to all assembly language programmers. In general, the information contained in this portion of the FAQ is not specific to any particular assembler. assembly-language/x86/general/part2 - This is a continuation of the above FAQ. assembly-language/x86/general/part3 - This is a continuation of the above FAQ. assembly-language/x86/microsoft - This portion of the FAQ contains information specific for the Microsoft MASM. assembly-language/x86/borland - This portion of the FAQ contains information specific for the Borland TASM. assembly-language/x86/a86 - This portion of the FAQ contains information specific for the Shareware A86 Assembler and D86 Debugger. The scope and content of this FAQ is to go beyond just answering the frequently asked questions. I am including pointers to assembly language treasure troves that are hidden out on the internet. I believe that this will enhance the FAQ's value not only to the novices but also to the old hands. For the ease of determining what has changed since the last FAQ, the Table of Contents will have "REVISED" at the end of the subject line for all revised subjects. If more than one FAQ revision has been missed, the "Last Changed:" entry at the end of each subject can be used to determine which subjects have been revised during the intervening time frame. The information in this FAQ is free for all to use as long as you acknowledge the source. This FAQ can be reproduced in part or in its entirety as long as the copyright is included. This FAQ can be made available on public servers, like ftp, gopher or WWW servers. Please do not modify the file, such as converting it into some other format, without prior permission of the author. All references to files and locations are in Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) format. Some web browser will be able to use these URLs directly as hot links. If the format is not clear to you, get RFC 1738. It is available from: ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1738.txt Suggestions for changes and comments are always welcome. They can be posted to either newsgroup or e-mailed directly to the me. Author: Raymond Moon, raymoon@moonware.dgsys.com Copyright 1997 - Raymond Moon ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Last Changed: 6 Jan 97 ------------------------------ Subject: 2. Table Of Contents 1. Introduction And Intent 2. Table Of Contents 3. How To Get The Patch For MASM 6.11 4. What Is And How To Access The Microsoft Knowledge Base 5. Pentium Instruction Macros 6. Microsoft's MASM Newsgroup NEW 7. Acknowledgments ------------------------------ Subject: 3. How To Get The Patch For MASM 6.11 There is a patch available from Microsoft for MASM 6.11. This patch converts MASM 6.11 or 6.11a into the latest version MASM 6.11d. To obtain this patch: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/ML611D.EXE ML611D.EXE is a self-extracting file which when executed will create the following files: ERRMSG.TXT PATCH.RTP H2INC.EXE PATCH.RTD H2INC.ERR README.TXT ML611D.TXT SUPPORT.TXT PATCH.EXE All the instructions for installing the patch are contained in ML611D.TXT. Contributor: Raymond Moon, raymoon@moonware.dgsys.com Last Changed: 2 Dec 95 ------------------------------ Subject: 4. What Is and How to Access the Microsoft Knowledge Base 4.1 WHAT IS THE MICROSOFT KNOWLEDGE BASE The Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) is a collection of articles that is maintained and used by the Microsoft Support personnel to answer customer questions. Included in the Knowledge Base are detailed how-to articles, answers to technical support questions, bug lists, fix lists, and documentation errors. This Knowledge Base is available to all on Microsoft's Internet Node. An index of all the articles is available in a file, index.txt. 4.2 HOW TO OBTAIN INDEX.TXT ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/masm/kb/index.txt This index still is available with the last entry dated Aug 96. 4.3 FILE FORMAT OF INDEX.TXT The format of this file consists of three columns. Column One is the file type with the following meanings: FIX - Bug Fix DOCERR - Documentation Error INF - Information PRB - Problem BUG - Bug Column Two is the path and file name in the following format: Qxxxyzz where the part, Qxxx', is Q followed by two or three numbers and represents the first subdirectory under the kb subdirectory, the part, y', is the next subdirectory under Qxxx, and The part, zz', when combined with .txt' is the filename. ****WARNING**** Some of the Qs are uppercase and some are lower case. Unlike DOS, the filenames and directory names are case sensitive. Column Three is a short description of the file. 4.4 GETTING FILES You can get all the files from the /developr/masm/kb directory without transversing this very strange directory structure by using the path in the get command. As an example, let's say you want Q106399, a very useful file if you use Visual C++ (see below). Using the parsing rules above, you can use the following get command: get q106/3/99.txt 4.5 HOW TO ACCESS THE KNOWLEDGE BASE USING GOPHER There no longer is gopher access to microsoft.com 4.6 HOW TO ACCESS USING WWW Microsoft has removed the MASM option from the their www KB search. Another www site for this knowledge base also is available. It is: http://emwac.ed.ac.uk/html/kb/masm.html To use this site, you must know the Q number. 4.7 SOME EXAMPLE FILES FROM THE MICROSOFT KNOWLEDGE BASE Q86815 Mixed C and MASM with MASM Main Language, No C Run-Time Q86816 Mixed C and MASM with MASM Main Language, C Run-Time Q101264 Assembling Code Developed for MASM 5.x with MASM 6.x Q106399 Using the Visual Workbench with MASM Q110598 Spontaneous Assembly and MASM 6.11 Errors Q123729 Accessing Command Line Arguments I have found Q106399 particularly helpful since I am really upset that Microsoft did not include direct support of MASM from within the Visual Workbench. Contributor: Raymond Moon, raymoon@moonware.dgsys.com Last Changed: 9 Nov 96 ------------------------------ Subject 5. Pentium Instruction Macros Macros that implement the new instructions available with the Pentium processor is available from Intel. ftp://ftp.intel.com/pub/IAL/pentium/p5masm.mac The new macros are: CMPXCHG8B - Compare and exchange eight bytes CPUID - CPU Identification RDTSC - Read Time Stamp Counter MOVTOCR4 - Move reg to CR4 MOVFROMCR4 - Move CR4 to reg RDMSR - Read Model Specific Register WRMSR - Write Model Specific Register RSM - Resume from SMM Contributor: Raymond Moon, raymoon@moonware.dgsys.com Last Changed: 8 Jan 95 ------------------------------ Subject 6. Microsoft's MASM Newsgroup NEW Microsoft has create a whole family of newsgroups devoted to their products. One of these new newsgroups is devoted to MASM. Its URL is news:msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.masm Contributor: Raymond Moon, raymoon@moonware.dgsys.com Last Changed: 20 Apr 97 ------------------------------ Subject: 7. Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge all the people who have assisted me or any of the contributors. For their time and effort, this FAQ is a better product. Barry Brey, Daniel Cardenas and Kevin Weinrich