Sender: nate AT cartsys DOT com
Message-ID: <37433D09.2D0E532B@cartsys.com>
Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 15:36:57 -0700
From: Nate Eldredge <nate AT cartsys DOT com>
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: DJGPP-Assembler
References: <275808B5EBC AT pcc DOT tgm DOT ac DOT at>
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

Carlos Giani_AEN2003 (M2003) wrote:
> 
> Why does the DJGPP assembler use AT&T syntax? Why not Intel syntax?

Think carefully about who AT&T is.  They wrote the assembler for the
original Unix, and they decided to use that syntax.  (No, I don't know
exactly why, unless it was closer to syntaxes for other architectures
and made porting easier.)  GNU, when they made GAS and GCC, decided (I
assume) to use the same syntax so that their tools could replace the
Unix ones.

> It is useful for porting code, but not for writing new code in DOS.

A matter of opinion.  Personally, I think AT&T syntax is much cleaner,
and I would write my asm code in it.

> A
> good solution would be to support both, Intel and AT&T. It would make
> coding MUCH easier.

There is NASM, which uses Intel syntax.  There is also a project
underway to allow GCC to use it as a backend.  (I think the current
snags have to do with debugging info.)

-- 

Nate Eldredge
nate AT cartsys DOT com