From owner-freebsd-doc  Thu May 20  7: 5:57 1999
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Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 10:03:02 -0400
From: Jeff Clough <vdk@chaosphere.com>
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Subject: At&T-style ASM Tutorial?
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To Whom It May Concern:

Having no experience with assembly outside of a DOS environment, and
having forgotten nearly everything I learned before, I resolved to learn
assembly all over again on my trusty FreeBSD box.  While this endevour
is certainly adventurous, I had no idea that there would be no maps to
show me the way.  Specifically, I note the absence of the following
(granted, I might have missed something):

 - There are no tutorials for learning assembly using the AT&T syntax
 - There is no list of available OS interrupts (if they exist at all)
 - There are no instructions (human, not processor) for accessing the
BIOS
 - There is no manifest available that says "This is what you need to
know to write slick assembly under FreeBSD
 - An interrupt list ala "Ralph Brown's Interrupt List" for FreeBSD

I spoke with someone a while ago about this (no one from the FreeBSD
movement, this guy was a Linux-phile) and was told "Why would you want
to learn AT&T!?!  Just grab a copy of NASM you masochist!".  This isn't
all that practical since I use gcc exclusively and I like to stick with
"standard" tools.  I think you're more apt to find gas on a system than
NASM.  Plus, this still doesn't address the "How do I do X with
FreeBSD?" issue.

Now, the point:

Since I'm learning this anyway and I love FreeBSD I'd like to get
involved with a project that fills in the blanks I listed above.  I
would love to see a "A Guide To FreeBSD Assembler" or something
similar.  A nice friendly tutorial that assumes no knowledge of the
Intel syntax.

If there is currently a project underway that is doing this, I'd like to
help.  If not, I'd like to start one. Hopefully such a thing would put
me in contact with people that can answer such questions as "How do I
print something to the screen without using a call to printf, etc.?"

Would such a thing be wonderful?  Please let me know.

Thanks!

-Jeff


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