HLA v1.62 is now available from the HLA Downloads page at
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AsmTools/HLA/dnld.html

The major change (practically the only change) is the inclusion
of the "freeHLA" system.

"freeHLA" (mostly) eliminates the use of copyrighted software and
data from the HLA package so that it's now possible to use HLA
under Windows without having to use copyrighted code such as
MASM, MS-Link, and the Microsoft resource compiler.

"freeHLA" uses the FASM asssembler (v1.51 or later) to process
HLA output and use uses various tools from the Pelles C toolkit
to process the object files produced by FASM and resource
scripts. It is now possible to distribute a complete HLA system
that doesn't require the user to download other software (e.g.,
MASM and MS-Link) from another source - the "freeHLA"
package can be distributed with all the software needed to run
HLA.

Note that "standard" HLA (that uses MASM) is still available for
those who have MASM and MS-Link on their systems. Indeed,
as "freeHLA" is currently being offered in beta-test form, the
standard HLA package provides a back up in case there are
problems with the use of "freeHLA".

Linux users should note that HLA for Linux has always used
freely available software, so the v1.62 update doesn't contain
anything of interest to a Linux user - this update is strictly for
Windows users only (HLA v1.61 remains the current release
for Linux).

Another slight change, by request, has been to split the HTML
documentation for HLA (the reference manual and the standard
library manual) into smaller files for faster loading and viewing.
This has been done. You can view the results here:
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AsmTools/HLA/HLADoc/HLARef/HLARefTOC.html
and here:
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AsmTools/HLA/HLADoc/HLAstdlib/HLAStdlibTOC.html

An RTF file of the documentation (or a Framemaker file) is also
available by special request.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

Hm, AFAIK, FASM is copyrighed software too - read the license. Maybe you mean "Open source"?

Regards

altough i am not HLA user i appreaciate this. I think it will popularize FASM more.

Thank you.
I downloaded fhlasetup.exe Free Fasm HLA & I'll check it out later.
The free thing, the break away from MS thing, the working Fasm package thing,
all of which is the right way to go.

Hopefully it will help beginners to get into .ASM assembly & learn of it's power & simplicity.

Bitdog.
PS, your present & past contributions to the world are very commendable
& greatly appreciated.

Yes, you are correct, I meant "Free", as in "freely distributable". (i.e., to paraphrase Richard Stallman, free as in "free beer", not free as in "freedom..."). Actually, the FASM license is quite reasonable for someone who cares only about the executable and doesn't at all care about the freedom to take that source code and create a different product with it. Basically, what I was saying is that freeHLA includes all this great software for which a copyright was intrinsically granted.

Though MASM gets "freely distributed" in the MASM32 package, such distribution is of questionable legality without Microsoft's explicit permission. The license accompanying FASM and the Pelles C tools, for example, would allow someone to distribute these products on a CD with a book (of special interest to me, of course) without having to navigate through that morass that is the Microsoft Licensing Department (something we actually tried for a week or so with "The Art of Assembly Language" before we finally gave up and said "people can just download it."). The grant of copyright comes with FASM and the Pelles C tools.

Cheers,
Randy Hyde