Hello All,
I definitely use CVASM16 and its predecessor the SPASM (the both are
virtually identical; the former supports more processor types, the latter
cooperates with PSIM, which is one of the most fine PIC emulators ever).

Advantages of them:

- small (below 20 kByte)
- robust (did not detect any (!) crash, or misbehavior)
- DOS-based (a high-rated criteria for me)
- supports MPASM, extended MPASM and Parallax mnemonics
- has a good built-in arithmetics
- incredible fast
- supports local labels - very fine feature!
- one can equates single bits (e. g. LED EQU RA.3)
- all standard register and bit names are known and supported (e. g. GIE,
TMR0) w/o any includes.

Disadvantages:
- does not support macros and conditional compile
- the constant format differs from that of Microchip (no problem for me as
SPASM is the primary choice)
- the arithmetics is a bit strange (exactly like a calculator: no
algebraic logic or parentheses, only strict left-to-right evaluation)
- the list file is slightly less informative than that of MPASM

All the code samples compile if you accept the differences written in
disadvantages. However, there are a lot of 8051-like samples (see Scott),
and it is simply clearer for me. Take e. g. the CJAE instruction...
Such way, the point #3 does not fit for me, rather the opposite.
I must say I'm happy with it and use MPASM only if I badly need it.

This is my $0.02 word.
Imre


On Thu, 6 May 1999, Bob Drzyzgula wrote:

> I just got a Clear View Mathias at work. Now, I know
> that there are a number of CVM users out there, and I was
> wondering if I should take advantage of the assembler
> that comes with it. So I thought that I'd ask:
>
>   * How many of y'all use the CVASM16 assembler on
>     a regular basis?
>
>   * If you do, what are the advantages/disadvantages?
>     Do you have trouble getting code samples? CVASM16
>     takes MPASM instructions but places restrictions
>     on them; if you feed it MPASM code, do you find
>     that you frequently have to hand process the code
>     before you use it, or does most code work with
>     minimal tweaking? Do you find that if you modify
>     code for CVASM16 and then try to take it back to
>     MPASM that you have to do any back-porting? If
>     you stick to the CV-specific "8051-like" instructions,
>     again -- are code samples rare? Do you have much
>     trouble porting code samples from other 8051 chips?
>
>   * If you've considered/tried CVASM16 but stuck with
>     MPASM (if you just went to using C or BASIC or
>     something that's another matter), what shortcomings
>     of CVASM16/advantages of MPASM led you to that
>     decicsion? If you use MPASM on the CVM, do
>     you find this putting you at any sort of
>     significant disadvantage?
>
> I've been using MPASM for some stuff, and for some
> stuff (including a commercial package -- emWare --
> that comes as MPASM source) I'll probably have to
> continue using MPASM for some time. But I was just
> trying to decide if it was worth the trouble to
> learn CVASM16 as well.
>
> TIA,
> --Bob
>
> --
> ============================================================
> Bob Drzyzgula                             It's not a problem
> bob@drzyzgula.org                until something bad happens
> ============================================================
>
>