In message , John Halleck writes >After seeing such assembliers (over 15 years ago) I'm surprised >that the assemblers I see for PIC's and other microcontrolers >are as limited as the assembliers I programmed on 30 years ago. > > > >Is this a marketing issue? Would people not pay for an assembler >with real power? > >Actually, it wouldn't be hard (if someone still had a Univac 1100 >around) to write the macro's to cause it to emit PIC instructions) >with assembly time errors if one tried to use a multi-instruction >macro after a test instruction... > >Actually... most people's PC's have more power that the Univac >1108 I first used MASM on... You can always use a separate macro-processor like m4 as a pre- processor, or implement a macro pre-processor in SNOBOL. I'm using a PD assembler with my own DSP system, which doesn't have a macro capability. Using m4 I've been able to use complex macros written for the ADI assembler. Someone who used to program them told me once that the old Singer mini had such a complex instruction set that a SNOBOL pre-processor was supplied, to translate the more understandable assembly language that the programmer actually used. I once implemented a complete TI 9995 x-assembler on my TRS-80 Model I using macros written for the Microsoft Macro-80 assembler. Leon -- Leon Heller: leon@lfheller.demon.co.uk http://www.lfheller.demon.co.uk Amateur Radio Callsign G1HSM Tel: +44 (0) 118 947 1424 See http://www.lfheller.demon.co.uk/dds.htm for details of my AD9850 DDS system. See " "/diy_dsp.htm for a simple DIY DSP ADSP-2104 system.