M4D: A Powerful Tool for Structured Programming at Assembly Level for MODCOMP Computers

摘要

Structured programming techniques offer numerous benefits for software designers and form the basis of the current high level languages. However, these techniques are generally not available to assembly programmers. The M4D package was therefore developed for a large project to enable the use of structured programming constructs such as DO.WHILE-ENDDO and IF-ORIF-ORIF...-ELSE-ENDIF in the assembly code for MODCOMP computers. Programs can thus be produced that have clear semantics and are considerably easier to read than normal assembly code, resulting in reduced program development and testing effort, and in improved long-term maintainability of the code. This paper describes the M4D structured programming tool as implemented for MODCOMP'S MAX III and MAX IV assemblers, and illustrates the use of the facility with a number of examples. (Atomindex citation 17:037225)