Turbo Assembler (sometimes shortened to the name of the executable, TASM) is an
assembler
Assembler may refer to:
Arts and media
* Nobukazu Takemura, avant-garde electronic musician, stage name Assembler
* Assemblers, a fictional race in the ''Star Wars'' universe
* Assemblers, an alternative name of the superhero group Champions of ...
for software development published by
Borland in 1989. It runs on and produces code for 16- or 32-bit
x86
x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was intr ...
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
and compatible on
Microsoft Windows. It can be used with Borland's other language products:
Turbo Pascal
Turbo Pascal is a software development system that includes a compiler and an integrated development environment (IDE) for the Pascal programming language running on CP/M, CP/M-86, and DOS. It was originally developed by Anders Hejlsberg at ...
,
Turbo Basic
PowerBASIC, formerly Turbo Basic, is the brand of several commercial compilers by PowerBASIC Inc. that compile a dialect of the BASIC programming language. There are both MS-DOS and Windows versions, and two kinds of the latter: Console and Wind ...
,
Turbo C
Turbo C is a discontinued integrated development environment (IDE) and compiler for the C programming language from Borland. First introduced in 1987, it was noted for its integrated development environment, small size, fast compile speed, compr ...
, and
Turbo C++. The Turbo Assembler package is bundled with Turbo
Linker
Linker or linkers may refer to:
Computing
* Linker (computing), a computer program that takes one or more object files generated by a compiler or generated by an assembler and links them with libraries, generating an executable program or shar ...
and is interoperable with
Turbo Debugger.
Borland advertised Turbo Assembler as being 2-3 times faster than its primary competitor,
Microsoft Macro Assembler
The Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) is an x86 assembler that uses the Intel syntax for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Beginning with MASM 8.0, there are two versions of the assembler: One for 16-bit & 32-bit assembly sources, and another (ML64) fo ...
(MASM). TASM can assemble source in a MASM-compatible mode or an ''ideal mode'' with a few enhancements.
Object-Oriented programming
Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...
was added in version 3. The last version of Turbo Assembler is 5.4, with files dated 1996 and patches up to 2010; it is still included with
Delphi and
C++Builder
C++Builder is a rapid application development (RAD) environment, originally developed by Borland and owned by Embarcadero Technologies (a subsidiary of Idera), for writing programs in the C++ programming language currently targeting Windows (bo ...
.
TASM itself is a 16-bit program. It will run on 16- and 32-bit versions of Windows, and produce code for the same versions, but it does not generate 64-bit x86 code.
Example
A Turbo Assembler program that prints 'Merry Christmas!':
.model small
.stack 100h
.data
msg db "Merry Christmas!",'$'
.code
main proc
mov ax, SEG msg
mov ds, ax
mov dx, offset msg
mov ah, 9
int 21h
mov ax, 4c00h
int 21h
main endp
end main
See also
*
Comparison of assemblers
*
A86 - contemporary of Turbo Assembler
*
MASM - contemporary of Turbo Assembler
*
FASM
FASM (''flat assembler'') is an assembler for x86 processors. It supports Intel-style assembly language on the IA-32 and x86-64 computer architectures. It claims high speed, size optimizations, operating system (OS) portability, and macro ab ...
- More recent x86 assembler
References
;Notes
*Swan, Tom (1989). ''Mastering Turbo Assembler.'' Carmel, Indiana: Howard W. Sams & Company, Hayden Books division of Macmillan Computer Publishing. . 2nd Edition, 1995 .
External links
Mastering Turbo Assembler: Programming with ObjectsGUI Turbo Assembler (TASM) : A 64bit MuItilingual IDE for Assembly Language with TASM & TLINKby Lakhya Jyoti Nath
{{X86 assembly topics
1989 software
Borland software
Assemblers
DOS software
Programming tools for Windows