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:::_____:::::::::::..............................................INTRODUCTION
by mammon_

Wow! This issue is huge. More than twice the size of the last; maybe it is time to go monthly...

This issue has as its theme --such as it were-- the use of popular free- and shareware assemblers. It began with my needing to write a GAS intro to accompany my X-Windows article; shortly thereafter, Linuxjr emailed me the benefits of his university training with his A86 tutorial (beginners: this is for you! Linuxjr explains everything). I then appealed to Gij to allow me to incorporate his Nasm 'Quick-Start' guiide, which I have used often...he posted the condition that I edit it heavily ;)

I would like to draw your attention first to our new column: Assembly Language Snippets. Originally this was an idea which I and a few others had; however, I never received any contributions for the 'Snippets' section. Then I received an email from Troy with the first one... I pulled the rest out of my various asm sources and voila, a new column was born. This is something that is fully open to contributions; asm snippets --and we will need lots-- may be emailed to asmjournal@mailcity.com or mammon_@hotmail.com, or they may be posted to the Message Board at http://pluto.beseen.com/boardroom/q/19784/ Basic format should be:

;Name:                Name to title you with
;Routine Title:       Name to title the snippet with
;Summary:             One-Line Description
;Comaptibility        Specific Assemblers or OSes this works with
;Notes:               Any extra notes you have

--Code--

I should point out here that freeservers.com is not very reliable; thus the APJ home page is inaccessible more often than not. For this reason I have set up a mirror on my own page, at http://www.eccentrica.org/Mammon/APJ/index.html

As for this issue's articles, we once again have two fine Win32 asm tutorials by Iczelion, who maintains an excellent page at http://iczelion.cjb.net (with a Win32 asm message board!). Ghirribizzo has supplied his fun Key Generator Competition results (I can't say I was surprised when I saw the winner ;).

Larry Hammick --who also maintains an excellent, smoking-enabled page at http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/hammick/-- has contributed a fantastic piece on asm optimization. XBios2 has this time gone above and beyond, not only with the C Language in Assembly but with his Issue Challenge as well... asm coders and reverse engineers alike should read this.

As for the issue challenge, XBios2 did not provide me with one for next issue, so I used one from a text I found on the Internet somewhere... he has been emailed the text and can try to beat it ;) Also, I am going to be setting up a page for reader responses to the Issue Challenges -- readers can anticipate the solutions before each issue comes out, or try and best the solution afterwards. Submissions can be sent to the same places as the Snippets.

Author Bio's? I know mainstream mags do this-- if you want one, send one. I'll tack it onto the end of the article ... anything within reason: URL, email, hobbies, perversions, favorite drink, favorite linux distro, etc.

Next Issue: How many articles on Code Optimization can I get? That would make a great theme (with the foundation laid this issue)--anything from code theory to PentiumII-specific optimizations would be welcome. Prospective articles, send to me or post on the MB...no topic is unacceptable unless you can in no way possible relate it to assembly language.

Enjoy the ish,
_m