I am righting a rather meaningless app into an .exe but every time I go to
compile it, It says Error illegal instruction, Instruction = CLS. Why wont it work?

Maybe fasm is correct? Check the Intel/AMD manuals, do you see CLS?

were do I find the manuals?

Ooh, ooh, let me point you to my website. I have all the manuals (and lots more) in there. Hehe

Don't take me too seriously Coddy41, it's just my warped sense of humour.

Intel:
http://developer.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/index.htm

AMD:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_739_7044,00.html

Next time you can't remember where to find theme, go to x86asm.net and click "links" (http://x86asm.net/links/index.html)

I so wish ARM would release info like the x86 manufacturers do

Dear Mr. and Mrs. ARM, if you are reading this (as if), please don't be so anal about your info. It is nothing special anyway. If you let everyone know how to program your CPUs then more people will buy them. Duh!

revolution: what's missing here? http://infocenter.arm.com/help/index.jsp

vid: The TRMs are pathetic. The real info requires you to jump through hoops and sell your first born before you can see it.

at least from software side, these free manuals do their job, don't they?

No actually. Go ahead and give them your email address et al. and see just what a TRM is. You will no doubt be disappointed. The Architecture Ref Manual goes further and is the one people need, but the requirements for being allowed to receive it also go up corresponding. As a test case I wrote to them as an average Joe using a gmail account and asked for the Arch. Ref. Man., I was promptly told to go away because I was a nobody.