So I have this very basic code that displays symbol corresponding to ASCII value in dl.



But the screen is blank (understandably) when the value is 0. I would like it to display something other than a blank screen. Even if I make a variable like zero db = 'null$' there seems to be no way to use if..else in assembly to only display it when appropriate.

I am actually open to anything as long as it is something other than a blank screen. Anything I can do?

MASM code on a FASM board isn't likely to get much help

Anything under the value of 32 is likely to be non-printable using DOS (except 7,8,9,10,13)

This can't be MASM. We started assembly this semester and the teacher made us download and install emu8086 to use it. It is a software that emulates a microchip on Microsoft Windows. I didn't know which compiler was being used behind the scenes so I opened the folder for the installed files running emu8086 and there is a separate folder in there called "fasm". Inside is FASM.EXE and an include folder with the relevant asm files.

That is how I found this forum. And values below 32 do get printed. For example 3 prints a heart.

The display of ASCII codes depends upon your code page settings, your console settings, and your font settings.

I wouldn't worry about what 0x00 prints unless I was debugging some serial data streams. Then I would choose a font and code page to show all the control codes.

Like this:
␀␁␂␃ etc.

But based on my explanation, I am correct to assume my code is FASM right? Because it runs in emu8086.

That code is not fasm syntax.

Perhaps it is nasm or masm or something else, but it isn't fasm.

its ugly masm.

I quick google, and we can see that fasm is setup to partially emulate MASM syntax.

https://github.com/AhmadNaserTurnkeySolutions/emu8086/blob/master/fasm/INCLUDE/MACRO/MASM.INC

But that would require to include a file before using MASM-specific syntax which, it seems, is not the case. So emu8086 might be set up to use some other compiler. That FASM is in a subfolder of the program doesn’t necessarily mean MASM isn’t. And it may also be set up to use MASM from some other place, not even related to emu8086 installation.

That's a lot of speculation, DimonSoft. Have you installed and tried the examples? If they build without MASM then it would be the case that includes are prepended to the process. I don't see a Copywrite notice for Microsoft in the documents - I doubt it uses MASM from Microsoft. Given that emu8086 inherrently supports a virtual machine environment with multiple devices, it's not surprising that includes are added to the build process.

Well, maybe, the last time I’ve actually run emu8086 was more than 10 years ago.

look there is a folder called fasm in the installation files, but no folder called nasm or masm. Most people in my class probably don't even know about these different compilers because I don't think the teacher ever told us about them. I think he basically just told us to download and install this software and start coding by watching him code.

So it is possible, I suppose that I am on the wrong forum.

that being said I did install fasm for windows afterward, to run programs outside emu8086 (the provided examples don't build on emu8086, but I thought that was because of different platforms, not different compilers), but I don't know where to go to ask about emu8086 specific problems.

fasm assembles the same code on all platforms.

You can compile Linux exes on Windows. Or DOS exes on Linux. Etc. In any combination, with no changes to the source or in the output binary.