What version of assembly? Any

[mouser]

You can use any assembler and any flavor of assembly that you want for these assignments.
Maybe people can post various assemblers they like for different platforms?

[f0dder]

Here's a bunch of free assemblers for the x86 platform: FASM, NASM, YASM. GNU AS for the masochists

[MilesAhead]

Masm32 is also fun to play with.  What makes it fun is that it includes Windows headers and macros to make it simpler to get started doing Windows apps.  iirc there's a 32 bit example that pops up an OK dialog that assembles to 5 kb(since all it does is call the windows dll to do it.) 

It has an "Invoke" syntax that you can use if you hate typing all the pushes and pops.

I think the last time I messed with it was using Win98 but it seems to still be out there.

[Ehtyar]

You can compile a MessageBox() to less than a kb under FASM

Ehtyar.

[MilesAhead]

You can compile a MessageBox() to less than a kb under FASM

Ehtyar.

It's probably the same.  It's been several years since I used it.  All it does is invoke the function in the dll so I don't think there's too many ways to make that smaller.

The main nice feature is the Windows headers and I seem to remember there was some cool lookup function that made it easy to get the params to a lot of win functions.  But my memory has faded.

[f0dder]

Friends don't let... oh wait, I'm not bringing that here.

FASM has an advantage over MASM in that it's free & has source code available - and adopts support for new instruction sets a lot faster than MASM does. And it offers pretty much what MASM does anyway, with the notable exception of return values from macros.

[ewemoa]

While browsing:

  https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/FASM

I noticed mention of:

  https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/High_Level_Assembly

Does that count?

Side note: also came across:

  https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Comparison_of_assemblers
  http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AsmTools/WhichAsm.html (written by HLA author?)

[Ehtyar]

HLA does count, but pick where you ask for help carefully.

Ehtyar.

[f0dder]

http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AsmTools/WhichAsm.html (written by HLA author?)

Yep, webster is Randall Hyde's site.

While HLA isn't my cup of tea, I think it's lame that some people claim that it isn't assembly.

[Cpilot]

Here's one that's under development.
easm
If you're interested in supporting something new and maybe a little different.

[ewemoa]

Thanks for the feedback [1].

I noticed the following text in Randall Hyde's comparison:

HLA provides an option to translate HLA source code to that used by several other assemblers (as this is being written, HLA provides the ability to translate HLA source code into MASM, TASM, Gas, or FASM format (NASM is planned and being worked on while this is being written).

If this works well, perhaps it is worth starting with HLA and then consider other options (leaning toward NASM atm) later.  The idea here being, perhaps the learning curve can be on the gentler side.

I guess HLA has an associated book also in online form (in addition to print):

  http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AoA/index.html


[1] Ehtyar, is there something more specific about being careful in asking for help on this you might not mind sharing?

[Ehtyar]

On the newsgroups in particular there are some very very big flame wars taking place revolving around HLA not being real asm etc etc. Before you ask for help with HLA on a dedicated forum, be sure to poke around and see what kind of reaction other have gotten to questions about it.

Ehtyar.

[ewemoa]

Thanks a lot for this tip -- perhaps I can remain relatively unsinged

[MilesAhead]

Thanks a lot for this tip -- perhaps I can remain relatively unsinged

Another thing you can do if you program in other languages, some allow embedded asm statements or procedures/functions.  That can give you a testbed of a running program and you just code a function in asm.  Gives an idea of how the pushes and pops work with parameters, stack setup etc..

[Crush]

A rather good one is the 0ok-Assembler from Farbrausch.

[mitzevo]

Just has to be an Assembly area doesn't there! 

[f0dder]

A rather good one is the 0ok-Assembler from Farbrausch.

Have Farbrausch changed name to 0ok?

[Crush]

No, Bero of 0ok is now also a member of Farbrausch.