| ★ APPLICATIONS ★ PROGRAMMATION ★ MAXAM (ARNOR) ★ |
| MAXAM (Microstrad) | MAXAM: Really friendly assembler (Computing with the Amstrad) | MAXAM (Amstrad Computer User) | Maxam (Popular Computing Weekly) |
Powerful Any program that called itself an assembler should be able to perform the same basic function - converting assembler to machine code. However the things that separate one version from another are the supporting utilities, the flexibility, and the ease of use, and this attempt by Arnor is easily the best that I have seen in those respects. It features a menu driven by disassembler and a memory lister in addition to the main editor and assembler, but the latter two are certainly the most important features. Each part can be loaded or omitted independently so that full use is made of the memory. The assembler itself has many excellent features - allowing identifiers of any length and almost any form including the use of directives and mnemonics as lables, and allowing conditional assembly via nested If, Else and Endif so that the object code differs in response to variables such as available memory. The assembler is two pass and different messages can be caused to appear on each pass and you are also given extensive control over the screen and printed output with various commands. However, it really comes into its own by allowing mixing of assembler and Basic -the utility can reside in memory above your program and assembler language can be entered as lines of Basic, assembled using commands provided as system extensions and run from any point in the program without affecting basic variable storage. Provision is made for full parameter passing between the two languages. The editor allows full screen editing with excellent cursor control, delete and insert functions and block loading, saving and printing. Although it has been designed to be used with the assembler, it can be used as a powerful editor for text and basic files saved in ASCII format - a truly superb feature that illustrates the care that has gone into this program. The documentation is good enough for most people's use and the company promise more utilities of a similar quality if this one does well - let's hope it does.
Tony Kendle , Popular Computing Weekly |
|  |
