Re: PL/MIX

Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> writes:


>Anyway, this provides me with more motivation for reading the PL/360 manual at
> http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/explain/manuals/PL360TXT.HTML


Since posting this, I found a pdf version of the manual. Also, I found
a commercial program, selling for about $50+S&H that is advertised as
an algebraic assembly language program for x86. Right now, I'm
downloading a free package called HLA (High Level Assembler) that runs
under both Windows and Linux. It is compiled but the distributors
claim that doesn't mean it isn't really still a high level assembly
language. They further claim that the use of macros in assembly
languages such as MASM blurs the distinction between assembly language
and higher level language. There's also a book.


I don't know if it is what I want (i.e. an analogue for x86 of PL360
or the nonexistent PL/MIX) but it does seem to offer a lot of
desirable features, not the least of which is that I can study it on
my own machine instead of on machines that I don't know anything about
and don't have access to. The two obvious exercises from my point of
view are to try to imitate HLA for MIX and to modify HLA (on x86 or on
MIX) to be handled just using lexical scanning (if that is
possible). It's easy to imagine, before doing any actual work, what
might be possible. I'm pretty inexperienced so what is possible for me
has to be at a fairly low level. As a side effect of learning to use
HLA, I might actually learn something about x86 machine language,
which I've wanted for some time to learn but have always found too
painful to spend much time on.


More if I ever know more....
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu>

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