Assembling Photon's tutorials using vasm

[guy lateur]

I'm trying to assemble tutorial22 by Photon. I'm doing this on win10, using the lastest vasm (1.8c). The code file in the attached archive is almost identical to the one written by Photon himself.

If I assemble this on the Amiga (well, AmigaForever) using AsmOne 1.48, everything works as expected. I get an executable file of 17600 bytes.

If I use vasm 1.8c to assemble this (make file included in attached archive), I get a file that is much bigger, ie 72223 bytes. One of the reasons for this seems to be that the BSS section is included in the executable. But even worse: my executable file is not executable! Even after I do a "protect mytut22.exe RWED", it still says my file is not executable.

So I have 2 questions:
1. how do I make the file executable?
2. how do I minimise the executable's size?

TIA!

[Don_Adan]

Originally Posted by guy lateur

I'm trying to assemble tutorial22 by Photon. I'm doing this on win10, using the lastest vasm (1.8c). The code file in the attached archive is almost identical to the one written by Photon himself.

If I assemble this on the Amiga (well, AmigaForever) using AsmOne 1.48, everything works as expected. I get an executable file of 17600 bytes.

If I use vasm 1.8c to assemble this (make file included in attached archive), I get a file that is much bigger, ie 72223 bytes. One of the reasons for this seems to be that the BSS section is included in the executable. But even worse: my executable file is not executable! Even after I do a "protect mytut22.exe RWED", it still says my file is not executable.

So I have 2 questions:
1. how do I make the file executable?
2. how do I minimise the executable's size?

TIA!

Seems to be vasm or your bug. Amiga exe file cant have 72223 bytes. Maybe with infohunk, but i dont remember exactly. Perhaps Vasm (as standard) used hunk word relocation, which is unsupported by older Amiga ROMs. Standard is hunk longword relocation. For me word hunk relocation is only problem for new coders/C programmers. You are not alone with "file is not executable" message. For me Amiga standard was always longword hunk relocation, word hunk relocation can be only option to choose, not default.

[guy lateur]

Originally Posted by Don_Adan

Seems to be vasm or your bug. Amiga exe file cant have 72223 bytes. Maybe with infohunk, but i dont remember exactly. Perhaps Vasm (as standard) used hunk word relocation, which is unsupported by older Amiga ROMs. Standard is hunk longword relocation. For me word hunk relocation is only problem for new coders/C programmers. You are not alone with "file is not executable" message. For me Amiga standard was always longword hunk relocation, word hunk relocation can be only option to choose, not default.

Thanks for your input. I'm very new to assembly programming and vasm, so I don't really know how to do 'hunk longword relocation'. In the vasm manual it mentions a .balign directive, but I don't know how to use it. Any tips on that?

FYI, here's the output from vasm:

F:\Amiga\dev\asmskool\mytut22>make -f mytut22.make
vasmm68k_mot.exe -o mytut22.exe mytut22.S
vasm 1.8c (c) in 2002-2018 Volker Barthelmann
vasm M68k/CPU32/ColdFire cpu backend 2.3b (c) 2002-2017 Frank Wille
vasm motorola syntax module 3.11c (c) 2002-2018 Frank Wille
vasm test output module 1.0 (c) 2002 Volker Barthelmann

TutDemo(acrx2):          881 bytes
TutData(adrw1):        16504 bytes
TutBSS(aurw1):         33792 bytes
dir mytut22*
 Volume in drive F is DataSSD
 Volume Serial Number is C6A4-7A59

 Directory of F:\Amiga\dev\asmskool\mytut22

19/06/2018  15:16            72 223 mytut22.exe
19/06/2018  14:41               157 mytut22.make
19/06/2018  14:44             8 276 mytut22.S
               3 File(s)         80 656 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  827 977 826 304 bytes free

So the total exe size is bigger than the sum of the 3 parts. Also, making all 3 parts a multiple of 4 bytes (by inserting some ds.b's) does not guarantee the exe file size to be a multiple of 4 bytes.

[meynaf]

The 72223 byte file in the archive is a listing, not an executable. Try looking at it with a text viewer.

[Leffmann]

It's not a listing, it's an object file. Specify

-Fhunkexe -kick1hunks

to produce a KS 1.2 compatible executable.

[meynaf]

This file contains text. AmigaOS object files are not text.

[guy lateur]

Originally Posted by Leffmann

It's not a listing, it's an object file. Specify

-Fhunkexe -kick1hunks

to produce a KS 1.2 compatible executable.

Yes! Thank you so much, Leffmann! This solved both problems (size + executability) in 1 go!

I still have a lot to learn, obviously, but I'm getting there, step by little step..

[Leffmann]

Originally Posted by guy lateur

Yes! Thank you so much, Leffmann! This solved both problems (size + executability) in 1 go!

I still have a lot to learn, obviously, but I'm getting there, step by little step..

Cool

Originally Posted by meynaf

This file contains text. AmigaOS object files are not text.

Vasm supports many types of output formats, not just AmigaDOS object files. To produce a listing you use the -L option, and what you have there is the output from the default Test module, which seems to contain everything needed to produce an executable, but since it's text I guess it's not wrong to call it a listing.

[phx]

Originally Posted by guy lateur

vasm 1.8c (c) in 2002-2018 Volker Barthelmann
vasm M68k/CPU32/ColdFire cpu backend 2.3b (c) 2002-2017 Frank Wille
vasm motorola syntax module 3.11c (c) 2002-2018 Frank Wille
vasm test output module 1.0 (c) 2002 Volker Barthelmann

Just look at the last line. The default output format is "test", not AmigaOS hunk-format executable.

[guy lateur]

Originally Posted by phx

Just look at the last line. The default output format is "test", not AmigaOS hunk-format executable.

Yep, that kinda makes sense now, but not until very recently..