pts / pts-fasm-bootstrap

bootstrap the fasm assembler on Linux i386

pts-fasm-bootstrap: bootstrap the fasm assembler on Linux i386

pts-fast-boostrap bootstraps the fasm assembler on Linux i386, i.e. it reproduces the fasm Linux i386 executable program bit-by-bit identical to the official distribution from its sources (and also from the sources of earlier fasm versions), but without having access to executable programs of earlier fasm versions.

pts-fast-bootstrap was inspired by bootstrapping FASM by rugxulo, 2018-02-20.

How to run:

• On a Linux x86 system (i386 or amd64), check out the Git repository, and run ./bootstrap_fasm.sh.

• The output file is fasm-re-1.73.32, which is identical to the file fasm-golden-1.73.32.

• The output file is executable on a Linux x86 system (i386 or amd64), and it's statically linked (i.e. independent of the Linux distribution and the libc).

Bootstrap chain

Involved fasm versions:

• fasm 1.20, released on 2001-11-17
• fasm 1.73.32, released on 2023-12-04

Both of these bootstrap chains are done by ./bootstrap_fasm.sh:

• bootstrap assembler --> patched fasm 1.73.32 --> original fasm 1.73.32

• bootstrap assembler --> patched fasm 1.20 --> patched fasm 1.73.32 --> original fasm 1.73.32

The bootstrap assembler

The bootstrap assembler is a simple, non-optimizing assembler targeting i386 (32-bit x86 only), and supports a subset of fasm syntax, and supports only a subset of the i386 (32-bit x86) instructions. Its only goal is to compile any of fasm 1.20, fasm 1.30 or fasm 1.73.32. Currently it is able to compile a lightly patched source of all of them. bootstrap_fasm.sh does the necessary patching.

Initially the bootstrap assembler was able to compile fasm 1.20 and fasm 1.30, but then it was discovered that it can also compile a lightly patched fasm 1.73.32.

The bootstrap assembler has multiple (equivalent) implementations:

• The implementation for the oldest assembler is fbsasm.mas, which works with MASM 5.00 (1987-07-31), see the details below.
• NASM: already implemented as fbsasm.nasm, use it with ./bootstrap_nasm.sh nasm. It is a reimplementation of a subset of fasm 1.30 (for Linux i386) in NASM 0.95 (1997-07-27) or later. It has been tested with 0.98.39 extensively. It was created by concatenating source files from fasm 1.30 and fasm 1.37 (Linux-specific fasm.asm and system.inc), and manually converting it to NASM syntax (mostly doing some manual changes and then many regexp substitutions).
• Yasm: already implemented as fbsasm.nasm, use it with ./bootstrap_nasm.sh nasm=yasm. The NASM source works without changes. Versions 1.2.0 (2011-10-31) and 1.3.0 (2014-09-11) are known to work. Maybe older versions work as well.
• fasm: already implemented as fbsasm.fasm, use it with ./bootstrap_fasm.sh fasm. It needs at least fasm 1.20 (2001-11-17) to compile.
• GNU as(1) (+ GNU ld(1)): already implemented as fbsasm.s, use it with ./bootstrap_fasm.sh as. It is autogenerated by fbsasm.nasm using the bundled nasm2as.pl Perl script. It works with various versions of GNU Binutils, tested with 2.7 (released on 1996-07-15), 2.9.1 (released on 1998-05-01, part of Debian 2.1 slink), 2.9.5, 2.22 and 2.30.
• TASM (Turbo Assembler) + folink2 (custom linker): already implemented as fbsasm.tas (TASM ideal mode), use it with ./bootstrap_fasm.sh tasm. It works with TASM 1.01 (1989), 2.0 (1990), 4.1 (1996, the latest Turbo Assembler which works on a DOS 8086 without a DOS extender) and 5.3 (2000-01-30, probably the last release of TASM). The custom linker folink2 is also included and is built from source by TASM.
• LZASM (Lazy Assembler) + folink2 (custom linker): already implemented as fbsasm.tas (TASM ideal mode), use it with ./bootstrap_fasm.sh lzasm. It works with LZASM 0.56 (2007-10-04, last release) and possibly earlier. The custom linker folink2 is also included and is built from source by LZASM.
• MASM (Microsoft Macro Assembler) + WLINK: already implemented as fbsasm.was, currently bootstrap_fasm.sh doesn't support it. It works with MASM 5.00 (1987-07-31) or later, TASM 3.0 (1991-11-11) or later, WASM 10.5 (1995-07-11) or later, JWasm 2.11a (2013-10-19) and maybe earlier, ASMC 2.34.49 (2024-030-26) and later and maybe earlier.
• as86 (part of dev86): already implemented as fbsasm.as86, use it with ./bootstrap_fasm.sh as86. It works with as86 0.0.7 (1996-09-03) and possibly earlier, but not 0.0.5.
• A386 (by Eric Isaacson): already implemented as fbsasm.8, use it with ./bootstrap_fasm.sh a386. It works with the A386 4.05 (2000-01-13) on a DOS 8086 (maybe needs an i386 processor).
• vasm (by Volker Barthelmann): already implemented as fbsasm.vasm, use it with ./bootstrap_fasm.sh vasm. It works with vasm 1.9a (2022-10-02) and possibly earlier.
• mw386as (port of the Mark Williams 80386 assembler, originally 1993-08-02, part of Coherent) + link3coff.pl (custom linker), use it with ./bootstrap_fasm.sh mw. It works with the 1993-08-02 version rebuilt from source, but the code generated by 1992-11-11 version seems to be broken. The custom linker is also included, and it's a Perl script. A Linux i386 executable of the Perl interpreter is also included.

It is a future plan to have the bootstrap assembler implemented in additional programming languages, targeting Linux i386:

• MASM (Microsoft Macro Assembler) + folink3 (custom linker)
• JWasm: with a bit of luck, the MASM port will work. JWasm can emit binary files with the `-bin' flag, the linker is not
• WASM (Watcom Assembler) + folink3 (custom linker): with a bit of luck, the MASM port will work; also maybe WLINK will work in raw binary mode
• ASMC: ASMC is a fork of JWasm, so with a bit of luck, the MASM port will work
• C89 (ANSI C): it should work with GCC on Debian slink (released on 1999-03-09), released before 2001-01-01, before fasm 1.20; how far can we go to the past? 1999? 1996?
• Perl 5.004_04 (1997-10-15). A slow but simple assembler which can compile fbsasm.fasm. Maybe later it will be able to compile FASM-1.73.32 and fbsasm.nasm.
• Solaris x86 Assembler, part of OpenSolaris.
• POASM from Pelle's C.
• HLA with its built-in
• linker.