Editing Turbo Assembler

{{Short description|Computer assembler developed by Borland}}
{{Redirect|TASM||Tasm (disambiguation)}}

{{Infobox Software
| name                   = Turbo Assembler
| developer              = [[Borland]]
| released               = {{Start date and age|1989}}
| latest_release_version = 5.4
| latest_release_date    = 
| operating_system       = [[MS-DOS]], [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]]
| genre                  = [[Assembly language#Assembler|Assembler]]
| license                = [[Proprietary software|Proprietary]]
| website                = {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101023185143/http://info.borland.com/borlandcpp/cppcomp/tasmfact.html |date=October 23, 2010 |title=Official webpage }}
}}

'''Turbo Assembler''' ('''TASM''')  is an [[assembly language#Assembler|assembler]] for software development published by [[Borland]] in 1989. It runs on and produces code for 16- or 32-bit [[x86]] [[MS-DOS]] and compatibles for [[Microsoft Windows]]. It can be used with Borland's other language products: [[Turbo Pascal]], [[Turbo Basic]], [[Turbo C]], and [[Turbo C++]]. The Turbo Assembler package is bundled with Turbo [[linker (computing)|Linker]] and is interoperable with [[Turbo Debugger]].

Borland advertised Turbo Assembler as being 2-3 times faster than its primary competitor, [[Microsoft Macro Assembler]] (MASM). TASM can assemble source in a MASM-compatible mode or an ''ideal mode'' with a few enhancements. [[Object-oriented programming]] was added in version 3. The last version of Turbo Assembler is 5.4, with files dated 1996 and patches up to 2010; it is still included with [[Embarcadero Delphi|Delphi]] and [[C++Builder]].

TASM itself is a 16-bit program. It will run on 16- and 32-bit versions of Windows, and produce code for the same versions, but it does not generate 64-bit x86 code. Turbo Assembler 5.0 (at least) also contains a 32-bit PE version of tasm called TASM32.EXE.

==Example==
A Turbo Assembler program that prints 'Merry Christmas!':

<syntaxhighlight lang="tasm">
.model small
.stack	100h
.data
msg	db "Merry christmas!",'$'
.code
main	proc
    mov ax, SEG msg
	mov	ds, ax
	mov	dx, offset msg
	mov	ah, 9
	int	21h
	mov	ax, 4c00h
	int	21h
main	endp
end	main

</syntaxhighlight>

==Reception==
In a review of three assemblers, Michael Blaszczak of ''[[BYTE (magazine)|BYTE]]'' in February 1989 found that Turbo Assembler was slower than SLR OPTASM but faster than and very compatible with MASM. He liked the tutorial on assembly programming and "excellent" sample code, but criticized the paucity of reference documentation. Noting that it was the only assembler that "cleanly assembled everything I fed to it", Blaszczak concluded that TASM was his favorite as it was "the best of both worlds: MASM compatibility without MASM's glitches", especially for those new to assembly.<ref name="blaszczak198902">{{Cite magazine |last=Blaszczak |first=Michael |date=February 1989 |title=Three Assemblers for MS-DOS |url=https://archive.org/details/eu_BYTE-1989-02_OCR/page/n260/mode/1up?view=theater |access-date=2024-10-08 |magazine=BYTE |pages=205-209}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Comparison of assemblers]]
*[[A86 (software)|A86]] - contemporary of Turbo Assembler
*[[Microsoft Macro Assembler|MASM]] - contemporary of Turbo Assembler
*[[FASM]] - More recent x86 assembler

==References==
{{reflist}}
;Notes
*Swan, Tom (1989). ''Mastering Turbo Assembler.'' Carmel, Indiana: Howard W. Sams & Company, Hayden Books division of Macmillan Computer Publishing. {{ISBN|0-672-48435-8}}. 2nd Edition, 1995 {{ISBN|0-672-30526-7}}.

==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20001025182704/http://cs-netlab-01.lynchburg.edu/courses/Assemb/OOPAssem.html Mastering Turbo Assembler: Programming with Objects]
* [https://sourceforge.net/projects/guitasm8086/ GUI Turbo Assembler (TASM) : A 64bit MuItilingual IDE for Assembly Language with TASM & TLINK] by Lakhya Jyoti Nath

{{X86 assembly topics}}

[[Category:1989 software]]
[[Category:Borland software]]
[[Category:Assemblers]]
[[Category:DOS software]]
[[Category:Programming tools for Windows]]