I am new in this. I need to find the easiest to learn and the best assembler people use today. (I know, it might be to much to ask). There are HLA, GoASM, MASM, FASM, TASM, ShMASM. Soooo many, it hurts. I am not a young man to loose my time. I know, I am on MASM forum and the answer might be somewhat bias. But I really need a help to find which road to go.

Actually you are on a fasm forum. But I think the best assembler for anyone is the assembler that does what one expects it to do.

For me, of course, that is fasm. For others there are other answers.

So basically there is no simple answer, you need to weigh up various things like price, speed, size, support, simplicity, extendibility, etc.

I suggest you try out all the various assemblers you mentioned and see which one suits your needs best. There is no substitute for an hands-on trial.

Thanks a lot. Yes, MASM was a typo.
Again, I am not experienced at all. To do all assembler would need a lot of time to learn and $$ to actually have hands-on experience. I don't have that many years left in my life. I bet that anyone knowng about assembly more than laying stone knows already more than I. That's why I seek for help here.

It is hard to judge what advice to give. Your level of knowledge is unknown to me. Do you have the Intel and/or AMD reference manuals? Do you know the general computer architecture? Do you want to program for Windows or Linux or MAC or other? Have you programmed in any other languages (eg. BASIC or C)? Do you know what hex and binary are?

But you can try some of the examples in the fasm download. See which ones take your fancy and have a play.

Suppose that someone inquired which automobile was the best? What would you say?
A few would argue this, some that, but most of us would respond:
Mercedes.
Now, that doesn't mean that some other car isn't better for other applications, or for other tastes. But, in general, if one went to India, or China, or USA, or Saudi Arabia, or Nigeria, or Russia, or Canada, or Brazil, or (etc, etc, etc), in general, most people would acknowledge that Mercedes is the best engineered, best designed, most comfortable, safest, highest resale value, etc, etc, ...
Point then, is when we explain that FASM is the best, we mean, it is the most like Mercedes. Not necessarily the absolute best, but the relative best. Maybe for some particular application, some other assembler will be superior, who knows. For me, FASM is the Mercedes of assemblers.

Thanks a lot. Then Mercedes it is.

the best is not Mercedes, it's Ferrari
and Ferrarai starts with F as Fasm.
Masm is the Mercedes.
mercedes cars are sh*t
Nasm is the Nissan?

I took assembler course (for 6500 micro) back in early 90's. i passed the tests with flying colors and made a project that did what it suppose to do. All from A-to-Z. But since then I never had a chance to do any programming. My employers were more interested in my designing power supplies. Now i have a good job opportunity where they need both power supply design and microcontrollers. I don't warry about the first. but micro's?.... If I can crank it in 3-4 months, i would be on top there. And I am willing to spend 10-12 hours a day (and more) to learn it.

sure!!! you design power supplies?
wich type?
you want to learn what in asmx86?

Ferrari like FASM is really fast,
Mercedes like MASM is really heavy and wobbly in the corners
Nissan like NASM gets the work done, but is for a budget user
I'm not good with analogies.

bzaretsky: If you can successfully program a 6500 then "upgrading" to x86 should be a breeze for you. But the problem you stated is which assembler to choose, so write down a list of things you expect it to do and see which assembler matches the best.

Some things that are unique to fasm which you might like to consider:

• Self compiling written entirely in assembly so no need for and external C compiler.
• Can be set to produce EXE files directly so no need for a linker.
• Doesn't use command line switches so no bother with trying to find the right commands to make others project assemble.

Perhaps one downside is that many examples posted elsewhere for are intended for MASM. Those MASM format source files cannot be directly assembled by fasm, you would need to do some editing.

[edit]fasm also has an ARM version. If you are doing some embedded programming then it may be of interest to you.[/edit]

Well, I am sure revolution is not aware but Sol_Asm is also completely written in asm and it compiles itself. AFAIK Octasm also and there might be others ...



Sol_Asm can do this also...hence again this feature is not "unique"



Semi true after the addition of "-d equate = value" command line options.

Command line parameters are a requirement for modern assemblers especially if you do big projects or target multiple OSes or integrate with other code and build systems. Not having command line options is hardly a feature.



Hmmm there are many example is FASM also.

However from an experienced ASM programmer's point of view the greatest downside of FASM is it's macro system that is very complicated to read and understand and has a big design flaw.

In fact this was one of the reasons why I decided to write my own macro assembler and not to use FASM for my projects. The other reason was the FASM source code that is very badly written although to be honest it does function correctly.

Not advocating against FASM and not promoting my own assembler because it is not yet fully finished and after all we are on a FASM board here. Honestly since you have asked on a FASM board then you should use FASM and most answers will be biased automatically.

But do not use FASM because of the "unique features" presented by revolution but because you like it and feel like it is a match for your own heart and ways of programming.

For me FASM does not match my heart but it might match yours.

I have noticed that you have asked the very same question on multiple boards. Hence I do suggest that you take each assembler for a test ride and choose one for your heart and pleasure.

Do not make it a goal. Make the very second you use an assembler filled with pure pleasure and joy. First the joy of discovery and testing and then the joy of creation with your chosen tool. This way it does not matter how many years you have left to live and if you do or do not obtain your distant goals ... but it does matter that you have filled your every moment with joy.

And maybe one day you will create your own tool to match your heart perfectly...

The best things about FASM for me at the moment are:

- no tedious syntax required
e.g no ASSUME directives, PROC/ENDP etc as in MASM

- support for Flat Real code

- extremely reliable

- source available

Good luck bzaretsky!

What is this "design flaw" that you mention?

[offtopic about design requests]I know of some possible things that people have asked for:

• Inline macro expansion
• Case insensitive matching
• Substring matching/extraction
• Early exit

[/offtopic about design requests]

Thanks a lot to you all. I've got a lot of information. You all've been very helpful

I'm about the same boat as you are, but if I'm gonna learn something, I'd set aside time and $$$.

Assembly language isn't something ordinary folks would want to muddle with. Out of 100 college grads with programming training, maybe 1 would want to explore the world of assembler language. Out of 1,000, maybe 1 would actually learn.

But for those who prefer assembler language to all other higher-level language, maybe the ratio is 1: 100,000

Perhaps because of this, the latest versions of GPUs aren't even accessible with assemblies anymore.

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Therefor, they are stupid


Same point as previous


That is coding style and has nothing to do with FASM


not really