1. About JWasm
JWasm is intended to be a free MASM compatible assembler. It's a fork
of Open Watcom's WASM and released under the Sybase Open Watcom Public
License (see license.txt for details).
JWasm supports various output formats:
format option comment
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
BIN -bin plain binary format (boot sector, BIOS, DOS COM)
COFF -coff MS Win32 object format
WIN64 -win64 MS Win64 object format
MZ -mz DOS native binary format (.EXE)
ELF32 -elf Linux 32-bit object format
ELF64 -elf64 Linux 64-bit object format
OMF -omf (default) object format, 16- and 32-bit supported
JWasm is distributed in several packages. Besides the source package
there are some which contain precompiled binaries for Windows, DOS and
Linux. Other OSes like OS/2 and FreeBSD are also supported, but no binary
is supplied, it must be created from the sources.
2. Requirements
- JWASM.EXE, a precompiled Win32 binary, runs on any Win32 platform.
- JWASMD.EXE, a precompiled DOS binary, runs in DOS 32bit protected-mode.
It requires a 80386 cpu and needs a MS-DOS v5 compatible DOS to run
(FreeDOS v1 will do). Long filenames (LFN) are supported.
- JWASMR.EXE is a DOS real-mode program which runs on any x86 cpu.
Similar to JWASMD.EXE it needs a MS-DOS v5 compatible DOS. Restrictions
of this version are:
- doesn't support long filenames
- supports OMF, BIN and MZ output formats only
- no support for 64-bit
Memory requirements depend on the source which is assembled. The source
itself is not kept in memory, but the symbol table is, and this table
can easily grow to several MBs if huge amounts of equates are defined.
That's why JWASMR.EXE might be unable to assemble large sources.
3. Documentation
JWasm's documentation consists of
- Readme.txt (this file)
- Manual.txt, which describes the differences to Masm.
- History.txt, which describes bugfixes and changes of all JWasm versions.
- License.txt, which is a copy of the Sybase Open Watcom Public License.
4. Samples
The binary packages contain samples in subdirectory SAMPLES.
For output formats other than BIN or MZ, JWasm's output has to be
linked to create an executable binary. Select one of the following
linkers:
Format Linker Comment
-------------------------------------------------------------
OMF WLink contained in Open Watcom, free, open source
OMF ValX by David Lindauer (Ladsoft), free
OMF OptLink from Digital Mars, free
OMF ALink by A. Williams, free
OMF Link16 the old OMF linker (v5.60) from Microsoft
OMF TLink from Borland
COFF WLink this linker accepts OMF and COFF modules
COFF MS Link will also accept OMF modules
COFF PoLink supplied with PellesC, free
ELF32 LD the GNU linker
WIN64 MS Link must be version 7.10 or newer
WIN64 Polink must be version 5 or newer
ELF64 LD the GNU linker
Note that the name of the MS OMF linker binary is LINK.EXE, identical
to the MS COFF linker name.
5. How to Create the JWasm Binaries
JWasm is written in C. The following Makefiles are supplied
in the source package:
name tool chain used creates binary for
---------------------------------------------------------------
Makefile OW v1.7a/v1.8 Win32, DOS (32-bit)
OWDOS16.MAK OW v1.7a/v1.8 DOS (16-bit)
OWOS2.MAK OW v1.7a/v1.8 OS/2 (32-bit)
OWLinux.MAK OW v1.7a/v1.8 Linux
MSVC.MAK VC++ TK 2003/VC++ 2005 EE Win32 [, DOS (32-bit)]
PCC.MAK PCC Win32
PellesC.MAK Pelles C v5 Win32 [, DOS (32-bit)]
BCC.MAK Borland C++ Cmdline Tools Win32
GccWin.MAK GCC, MinGW/Cygwin Win32
GccDos.MAK GCC, DGPJJ DOS (32-bit)
GccUnix.MAK GCC, FreeBSD/Linux FreeBSD [, Linux]
TCC.MAK Tiny C Win32
The makefiles which use the OW tool chain are supposed to be run
with Open Watcom's WMake, MSVC.MAK should be run with MS NMAKE,
PellesC.MAK expects POMAKE and for Gcc*.MAK GNU make is to be used.
More detailed information may be found in the makefiles themselves!
The default settings in Makefile will create both the Win32 and
32bit-DOS binaries of JWasm.
6. Using JWasm with Visual Studio 2005/2008/2010/...
To integrate JWasm into VS, copy file jwasm.rules to directory
<vc_dir>\VC\VCProjectDefaults. After this is done, JWasm can be
selected as assembler inside the VS IDE.
7. Contributors
These people contributed to JWasm ( additions, bugfixes, bug reports):
agner, BlackVortex, drizz, Paul Edwards, filofel, Peter Flass,
James C. Fuller, gfalen, Japheth, Jimg, jj2007, Khusraw, Alex Kozlov,
Peter Kuznetsov, misca, Michal Necasek, H. Nidudsson, RotateRight,
Ito Toshimitsu, Vortex.
Japheth
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