Re: Writing Assembler!

landon@netcom.com (Landon Dyer) wrote:


> Ahem. The Stupidest Assembler Trick I Ever Saw Was One Written By
>The R*** M******** Corporation For The TRS model 16 [already you are
>getting the heebie-jeebies, i can tell :-) ]
>
> In This Gobbler Of A 68k Assembler, Spaces Were Significant In
>Symbols. You Had To Terminate A Symbol With TWO Spaces, Or A Tab, For
>Example:
>
> this is a valid symbol:
> jmp this is a valid symbol
>
> When I Saw This Actually Assemble, I Was Dumbstruck. I Still Stand
>In Awe Of The Mind (Well, Probably A Committee) That Hatched This
>Thing. I Assume That The Same Parties Later Moved On To X.500, But
>That'S Just Idle (Well, Nasty) Speculation


          Stupid trick is right!


          Given a symbol that was one short of the next tab position, it
could've been interesting:
                      symbol jmp elsewhere
                      asymbol jmp elsewhere
                                    ^
The first is fine, but what is the whitespace at the caret? If it's
<tab>, it's fine, but if it's <space>, it isn't.


Sincerely,


Gene Wirchenko
[I suspect that particular assembler didn't grok tabs. -John]


--

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