The MicrosoftÒ Macro Assembler Programmer's Guide provides the information you need to write and debug assembly-language programs with the Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM), version 6.0. This book documents enhanced features of the language and the programming environment for MASM 6.0. It also describes new features that take advantage of the capabilities of the 80386/486 processors.
The Programmer's Guide is written for experienced programmers who know assembly language and are familiar with an assembler. The book does not teach the basics of assembly language; it does explain Microsoft-specific features. If you want to learn or review the basics of assembly language, refer to “Books for Further Reading” later in this introduction.
The documentation for MASM 6.0 is an integrated set, comprehensive and cohesive. This book emphasizes writing efficient code with the new and advanced features of MASM. Installing and Using the Professional Development System explains not only how to set up MASM 6.0 but also how to use the extensive online reference system, the Microsoft Advisor.
Installing and Using also introduces the integrated environment called the Programmer's WorkBench (PWB) and shows how to manage development projects with it. The Microsoft Macro Assembler Reference provides a full listing of all MASM instructions, directives, statements, and operators, and it serves as a quick reference to utility commands.
For more information on these same topics, see the online Microsoft Advisor, which is a complete reference to Macro Assembler language topics, to the utilities, and to PWB. You should be able to find most of the information you need in the Microsoft Advisor. The printed documents give more in-depth and background information.