Any Major Windows Apps in Pure x86? - ASM x86 ASM 370

On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:38:05 -0700 (PDT), KJH
<spamtrap@crayne.org> wrote:

>On 22 loka, 15:35, (Bob Masta) <spamt...@crayne.org> wrote:
>> Are there any major Winodws applications written
>> in pure x86?  I'm thinking about apps that are
>> either commerically or otherwise publicly
>> available, not in-house captive apps.  (By "pure"
>> I mean only that they don't use HLL code or
>> libraries, only native Windows API calls.)
>>
>> That, of course, begs the question of what
>> constitues "major".   I'll leave that up for
>> discussion... <g>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Bob Masta
>>

>
>Interesting question. I'm not sure and 100% conclusive, but I've heard
>that the game "Rollercoaster Tycoon" was written in 99% pure x86
>assembly. Which is pretty much, but I guess there was some HLL
>libraries involved. I don't know. I'm sure that also SoftICE debugger,
>at least older versions, had major portions written in x86, either
>inlined within C or just pure asm modules. But I can't testify on that
>either.
>
>Turbo Assembler from Borland is most likely written in asm. They may
>have first written it in HLL and then take the output listing and
>optimize it further in pure asm. Again, I'm not sure, I'm just
>observing
>
>Really I don't know, I would guess that nowadays it's pretty much C++
>in mainline code, and maybe just the most time critical or otherwise
>hardware dependent portions which gets written in x86.
>
>Hmmm... Time to market and all the other hype which effectively
>prohibit the use of pure assembly language in modern development. It's
>a shame Isn't DAQARTA also written in pure asm?
>

Yes, Daqarta is written in MASM32. I just got to
wondering how many other diehards were out
there... glad to see I'm in good company!

Best regards,


Bob Masta

DAQARTA v4.51
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time ****ysis
www.daqarta.com
Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, Sound Level Meter
FREE Signal Generator
Science with your sound card!

Alexei A. Frounze wrote:
> On Oct 24, 2:38 am, KJH <spamt...@crayne.org> wrote:
>> On 22 loka, 15:35, (Bob Masta) <spamt...@crayne.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Are there any major Winodws applications written
>>> in pure x86? I'm thinking about apps that are
>>> either commerically or otherwise publicly
>>> available, not in-house captive apps. (By "pure"
>>> I mean only that they don't use HLL code or
>>> libraries, only native Windows API calls.)
>>> That, of course, begs the question of what
>>> constitues "major". I'll leave that up for
>>> discussion... <g>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Bob Masta
>>> DAQARTA v4.51
>>> Data AcQuisition And Real-Time ****ysis
>>> www.daqarta.com
>>> Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, Sound Level Meter
>>> FREE Signal Generator
>>> Science with your sound card!
>> Interesting question. I'm not sure and 100% conclusive, but I've heard
>> that the game "Rollercoaster Tycoon" was written in 99% pure x86
>> assembly. Which is pretty much, but I guess there was some HLL
>> libraries involved. I don't know. I'm sure that also SoftICE debugger,
>> at least older versions, had major portions written in x86, either
>> inlined within C or just pure asm modules. But I can't testify on that
>> either.
>>
>> Turbo Assembler from Borland is most likely written in asm. They may
>> have first written it in HLL and then take the output listing and
>> optimize it further in pure asm. Again, I'm not sure, I'm just
>> observing
>>
>> Really I don't know, I would guess that nowadays it's pretty much C++
>> in mainline code, and maybe just the most time critical or otherwise
>> hardware dependent portions which gets written in x86.
>>
>> Hmmm... Time to market and all the other hype which effectively
>> prohibit the use of pure assembly language in modern development. It's
>> a shame Isn't DAQARTA also written in pure asm?
>
> Turbo Pascal 6.0 compiler (and I believe all earlier versions and
> probably most of the last version 7.x) was written almost entirely in
> ASM. Only the Turbo Vision-based UI was written with considerable
> amount of Pascal. Earlier versions didn't have such a sophisticated UI
> and their UIs could be written in ASM as well.

The original TP V1 editor/compiler/linker/debugger used a total of 35 KB!!!

Tight asm indeed. :-)

Terje

--
- <Terje.Mathisen@hda.hydro.com>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

On Oct 24, 3:25 am, "Alexei A. Frounze" <spamt...@crayne.org> wrote:
> Turbo Pascal 6.0 compiler (and I believe all earlier versions and
> probably most of the last version 7.x) was written almost entirely in
> ASM.

100% incorrect. I know this because I have the source code to TP6
(the real compiler and IDE, not just units or RTL). TP6 is written in
TP6, like all good compilers should be.

On Oct 24, 9:41 pm, Jim Leonard <spamt...@crayne.org> wrote:
> On Oct 24, 3:25 am, "Alexei A. Frounze"  <spamt...@crayne.org> wrote:
>
> > Turbo Pascal 6.0 compiler (and I believe all earlier versions and
> > probably most of the last version 7.x) was written almost entirely in
> > ASM.
>
> 100% incorrect.  I know this because I have the source code to TP6
> (the real compiler and IDE, not just units or RTL).  TP6 is written in
> TP6, like all good compilers should be.

100% incorrect? Really?

TP 6.0 source code consists of:
~50 asm files worth ~530 KB of the compiler itself (the part that
parses source and generates code, the debugger, etc)
~20 asm files worth ~120 KB of the editor code
~50 pascal files worth ~460 KB of the UI + extras

+ standard units (could be precompiled) whose source contains mostly
inline ASM, interfaces (constants and procedure/function prototypes)
and very little Pascal code (mostly variable declarations). Units Crt,
Dos, System, Strings have virtually no Pascal code in them. You can
see a lot of Pascal code in Turbo Vision and even there there's a
considerable amount of inline ASM as well.

Alex

Bob Masta wrote:
> Are there any major Windows applications written
> in pure x86? I'm thinking about apps that are
> either commerically or otherwise publicly
> available, not in-house captive apps.

Well yes!
All the www.tausystems.com Survey ****ysis and language text parsing
software packages are written in Fortran but with the same source code
other than interface libraries in two versions (ASM for DOS, DOS
emulation; and Fortran-API for Windows command-line and Windows),.
There are over 60 source files in the one source set.

One product set (for DOS, and DOS emulation under Wndows) is entirely
compiled in X86 (Fortran X86 compilation with X86 16-bit assembler
interfaces to O/S services).
Two main menu programs are optionally available as 32-bit native
windows versions, but call the same X86-coded daughter programs

The other version is the same Fortran source compiled with a WIndows-
based 32-bit compiler, and with an API-based replacement for the
similar Windows O/S services in order to achieve a windows-like TUI.
The softare is commercially available since 1972 with quarterly
updates and runs on AT and up, and on MAC emulations of MSDOS..

On Oct 24, 2:19 pm, "Alexei A. Frounze" <spamt...@crayne.org> wrote:
> TP 6.0 source code consists of:
> ~50 asm files worth ~530 KB of the compiler itself (the part that
> parses source and generates code, the debugger, etc)
> ~20 asm files worth ~120 KB of the editor code
> ~50 pascal files worth ~460 KB of the UI + extras

It appears my copy of the source is incomplete!

On 27 loka, 18:12, Jim Leonard <spamt...@crayne.org> wrote:
> On Oct 24, 2:19 pm, "Alexei A. Frounze"  <spamt...@crayne.org> wrote:
>
> > TP 6.0 source code consists of:
> > ~50 asm files worth ~530 KB of the compiler itself (the part that
> > parses source and generates code, the debugger, etc)
> > ~20 asm files worth ~120 KB of the editor code
> > ~50 pascal files worth ~460 KB of the UI + extras
>
> It appears my copy of the source is incomplete!

Yes it appears so. I have seen the source which appears to be the
source for TP6 and it really has the quality of pure ASM.
Aforementioned source module listings seems to be correct. So pretty
much all of TP6 was written in uncommented asm Very little UI code
was written in Pascal... I wonder why they used so little commenting
in source level. Go and figure. Long live assembly language!

so What about non Windows apps ?

A bunch of sophisticated operating system.
For example the first (Dos, Unix) versions.
MenuetOs(I really admire the courage of these guys).
But what happens when portability is a main issue ?!!
I think Emulation would just slow things down a little bit.

On Nov 1, 1:51 am, KJH <spamt...@crayne.org> wrote:
> On 27 loka, 18:12, Jim Leonard  <spamt...@crayne.org> wrote:
>
> > On Oct 24, 2:19 pm, "Alexei A. Frounze"  <spamt...@crayne.org> wrote:
>
> > > TP 6.0 source code consists of:
> > > ~50 asm files worth ~530 KB of the compiler itself (the part that
> > > parses source and generates code, the debugger, etc)
> > > ~20 asm files worth ~120 KB of the editor code
> > > ~50 pascal files worth ~460 KB of the UI + extras
>
> > It appears my copy of the source is incomplete!
>
> Yes it appears so. I have seen the source which appears to be the
> source for TP6 and it really has the quality of pure ASM.
> Aforementioned source module listings seems to be correct. So pretty
> much all of TP6 was written in uncommented asm Very little UI code
> was written in Pascal... I wonder why they used so little commenting
> in source level. Go and figure. Long live assembly language!

Maybe the authors were real gurus and never commented the punch cards
either. Or maybe they scrubbed some comments for a reason (to keep
secrets or avoid embarrassment).

Alex