I am very impressed with FASM's support for Windows GUI programs. This is the first time I've ever used an IDE with assembly language! (The only minor issue I noticed was that the tab key doesn't work in a way that makes sense, but that is not a big deal at all.)

I'm not really ready to tackle GUI myself though, and I don't need it for the program I'm writing right now.

Do you have any documentation or example programs for console-mode? I want the user to be able to type commands and hit the [enter] key, and my program will do something in response, typically displaying some data, and then get another command, and so forth --- all text.

The best solution would be if there is a Windows version of ncurses available. Any kind of a common API between Windows and Linux would be fine. I'm working with Windows right now, but I would like to make my program work under Linux too.

Thanks in advance for your help --- Hugh

P.S. --- The reason I'm switching over from HLA to FASM is that HLA doesn't support 64-bit x86, but only 32-bit x86 --- the 64-bit computers are common enough now that I think I can require that for my program, and all of those registers do make programming a lot easier.

You can use ncurses on Windows. Check the ncurses site for documentation and installation packages.

Hugh Aguilar,

For simple line-oriented I/O you can use C runtime from Microsoft (MSVCRT.DLL).

Fancy UI can be drawn with WinAPI console functions (e.g. WriteConsoleOutput()). Public Domain Curses is available too, but you may have to recompile it for x86-64 and write proper include file.

I was hoping to finish a small library for this -- just for FASM.
I started long ago, but kind of stalled -- too much of other work I have.

Thanks everybody for the tips. I'll look into what is required to get ncurses running under Windows with FASM.

BTW: Another noobie question:
Can anybody provide a link to a document describing the 64-bit x86? I have the Intel manuals. They are very thorough, but rather cumbersome. Is there anything available that would allow me to quickly look up the instructions? I'm very rusty on this stuff, and I've only done 32-bit and 16-bit in the past, so I need a handy reference.

Hugh Aguilar,

There is x86asm.net site, it's home for x86 instructions' reference (there are some useful articles too, e.g. x86-64 Tour of Intel Manuals).

Excellent! That is exactly what I wanted --- if I find an instruction that I don't know about, I look it up in the Intel manual for a detailed description, but this will speed up my work a lot on basic programming.

Yet more noobie questions:

Is it true that all reference to memory is relative, and there is no absolute addressing mode on the 64-bit x86? The rip register hold's the current instruction's address and is used internally for this?

It looks like mov is the only instruction that can use 64-bit immediate values. If I use another instruction with a 64-bit register and a smaller immediate value (such as 32-bit), will that immediate value get sign-extended or zero-extended? Does it depend on which instruction this is?