Turbo Assembler (sometimes shortened to the name of the executable, TASM) is an
assembler for software development published by
Borland
Borland Software Corporation was a computer technology company founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn. Its main business was the development and sale of software development and software deployment product ...
in 1989. It runs on and produces code for 16- or 32-bit
x86 MS-DOS and compatible on
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
. It can be used with Borland's other language products:
Turbo Pascal,
Turbo Basic,
Turbo C, and
Turbo C++. The Turbo Assembler package is bundled with Turbo
Linker and is interoperable with
Turbo Debugger.
Borland advertised Turbo Assembler as being 2-3 times faster than its primary competitor,
Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM). TASM can assemble source in a MASM-compatible mode or an ''ideal mode'' with a few enhancements.
Object-Oriented programming 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
Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracle ...
and
C++Builder.
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
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 ...
- contemporary of Turbo Assembler
*
FASM - 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