Talk:Netwide Assembler

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[edit] Name

How did it come by its name? "Netwide Assembler" seems kind of odd. Is it like Nethack in its derivation? --Gwern (contribs) 18:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

IIRC, the name came about because the project was based on a load of discussions to which anyone on the USENET group comp.lang.asm.x86 was encouraged to contribute, about what their ideal assembler would look like. In a sense, it was built to keep all of those things that were discussed there in mind. OK, so some of them never happened, but in spirit it was an assembler designed for the Internet, or at least that part of it that read clax86. Probably best to ask Simon Tatham. I'm pretty sure the name was his idea, and I don't think he ever comes here. JulesH 14:39, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the page should mention this, along with some info about what stuff wasn't added?

And, shouldn't this page be at Netwide assembler ?

Zuiram 08:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Political problems?

Could anyone elaborate on the political problems mentioned? If they caused a license change, they may be significant enough to have their own section. Obonicus 15:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Generally

Could somebody reword this:

"NASM principally outputs object files, which are generally not executable in and of themselves. The only exception to this are flat binaries (e.g. .COM) which are inherently limited in modern use."

Why "NASM"? (Isn't the rest of the paragraph equally applicable to all assemblers?) Why "principally"? Why "generally"? Is "in and of themselves" necessary? "Exception" to what, precisely? (Their ability to be executed? I thought object files ended in ".O", and simple, headerless command file executables under 64 kilobytes, if that's the way to describe them, ended in ".COM", so wouldn't they have to be renamed, at least?) What does "flat" mean? Are there many examples besides ".COM"? Why "inherently"? "Limited" how? How "modern"? Do ".COM" binaries work, and if so, why are they less useful today than in the past? (As far as I know, they work fine, and work on my Windows XP computer, as far as I can tell, just as they did on my IBM PC in the early 1980's.)

I hope the statement can be made less verbose and more definitive without loss of accuracy, yet comprehensible to a wider audience. Perhaps this would do (if it's correct):

"Assemblers produce object files, which do not contain legible text, but instructions to central processing units. Those assembled on the TINY model can be executed directly, but otherwise are accompanied by other files, to be linked (compiled?) into an executable program." Unfree (talk) 22:46, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Not all assemblers operate in that manner, most... but not all. "principally" because flat binary files are available as opposed to object files. "generally" because some operating systems and setups are designed to work with those object files directly, e.g. RDOFF. "in and of themselves" could easily go, kind of redundant. "Exception" as related to "principally" in the same way you'd use either/or neither/nor. "flat" comes from the fact that there is no structure or specification, only code that could be ideally fed to a processor and executed as-is; major examples being MBRs, kernels and other things related to operating system development. "inherently limited" due to the fact that not many people can make use of a 64KB BIOS/DOS Interrupt driven CLI environment to solve modern day tasks; not in a timely and cost-efficient manner, anyhow. Also, this article is about NASM, why would we try to spread generic information in a specific article? This is why those article interlinks exist, to avoid the mass posting of redundant information. SpooK (talk) 17:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)