history

vasm history
=============

- 1.8g (04.10.19)
o Do not print informational messages when generating dependencies.
o New option -depfile to specify a file name for the dependency output.
  Code generation may happen in parallel in this case.
o Include the compile directory in the path, when printing error messages.
o Treat a subtraction of a label from a constant as constant, when the
  label is from an absolute ORG section.
o m68k: -opt-allbra makes sure that branch-optimization is enabled.
o z80: "ld (BC/DE/HL),abs" is an illegal addressing mode.
o mot-syntax: SECTION directive with a single argument is interpreted as
  section-type when the output format is "tos". Otherwise the type
  defaults to CODE.
o mot-syntax: In devpac-compatibility mode allow '@' in the middle of labels.
o mot-syntax: -phxass compatibility mode allows dots ('.') in labels (-ldots).
o mot-syntax: Added support for Devpac IIF directive.
o output-hunk: Fixed LINE debug hunk output (-linedebug). Now it can
  deal with code from multiple sources and the line numbers for
  executing macros and repetitions are correct.
o output-hunk: New option -hunkpad=<code> selects the padding code for
  code sections to achieve 32-bit alignment. Default to 0x4e71 (NOP)
  for M68k.

- 1.8f (10.06.19)
o New option -wfail makes vasm return with an error code not only for
  errors but also for warnings.
o 6502: Added missing WDC65C02 instructions (-wdc02): STP and WAI.
o m68k: Warn about DIVxL.L with identical quotient and remainder registers.
o m68k: Do not optimize or translate PC-relative addressing modes when
  the referenced symbol is in a different section.
o m68k: RTD operand should be signed.
o m68k: Automatic optimization of absolute to base-relative addressing
  (-sd option) must only be done when the target address is between offset
  0 and 65535 in the small data section.
o z80: Forbid ixh/ixl operands on one side with h/l on the other.
o mot-syntax: Structure directives (RS, SO, FO) without an offset-expression
  are not allowed in Devpac-compatibility mode (-devpac).
o mot-syntax: __LINE__ represents the correct line number again, after it
  had been broken in the last version.
o mot-syntax: New directive DX for ProAsm/Barfly compatibility. Used to
  create DataBss space in an executable file. Otherwise identical to DS.
o mot-syntax: New option -cnop=<code> sets a two-byte code for padding
  CNOP-alignments. Defaults to 0x4e71 for M68k.
o output-hunk: Make sure all unsupported relocations in hunk-executables
  are reported. Do not generate an executable with missing relocs.
o output-hunk: Do not pad a code section with 0x4e71 when skipping
  DataBss contents at this point (-databss with -Fhunkexe).

- 1.8e (28.12.18)
o New option -dwarf automatically generates line debug information for
  source level debugging in DWARF V2 or DWARF V3 format.
o New output module for Sharp X68000 Xfile executables. Can be selected
  with the -Fxfile option.
o Repeatedly included files are only loaded once into memory.
o m68k: Avoid wrong branch-optimization info messages with -opt-allbra.
o 6502: Fixed LDA (zp,X) in 65C02 mode (-c02).
o 6502: -wdc02 enables the WDC65C02 extensions, like RMB, SMB, BBR, BBS.
o 6502: Support for Hudson Soft HuC6280 (new option -6280).
o 6502: New directive SETDP to set the current zero/direct-page address
  for optimizations from abs to zp addressing modes.
o x86: Fixed crash with SWAPGS, when not supported by current cpu.
o std-syntax: Fixed potential buffer overflow when parsing macro arguments.
o output-hunk: Always try to include the full absolute source-path when
  writing LINE debug hunks (-linedebug option).

- 1.8d (20.08.18)
o Repeat-loops with a single line generated a malformatted listing file.
o m68k: Recognize (PC) addressing mode and transform it into (0,PC).
o m68k: Only "fpu 1..7" may enable FPU code generation.
o m68k: -kick1hunks also prevents optimizing from absolute to 32-bit
  PC-relative.
o arm: Fixed instruction alignment in Thumb mode, which was broken since
  1.8b (introduction of -noialign option).
o arm: Fix for immediate operands like cmp r0,#'A' not working properly in
  thumb mode (provided by Peter Petterson).
o PPC: tlbld is available as general PPC instruction again.
o z80: SBC addressing modes IX,ss and SBC IY,ss do not exist.
o z80: EX (SP),HL is not supported by GBZ80, but SRL is.
o mot-syntax: Report garbage at end of line for DC directives.
o mot-syntax: Labels with a double colon are automatically exported (xdef).
o mot-syntax: Allow '?' within identifiers, in Devpac-compatibility mode.
o madmac-syntax: Report garbage at end of line for DC directives.
o std-syntax: Fixed \@ (unique id) in macros, which was broken since 1.7h.
o vobj-output: Prevent crash when referencing undefined local symbols.

- 1.8c (15.03.18)
o Relocated ORG blocks within a section were not recognized, when their
  start address was 0.
o The count in repeat-directives is always unsigned, even when given as
  a negative value.
o Check for target address space overflows.
o Fixed crash when undefining non-existing register symbols.
o A redefined label is no longer a warning, but an error.
o arm: Fixed compile-error from last release.
o vobj-output: Fixed uninitialized symbol index for internal/local symbols.
o oldstyle-syntax: New directive ROFFS to set the program counter relative
  to the start of the current section.

- 1.8b (30.12.17)
o Option -noialign disables the automatic instruction alignment.
o m68k: New Apollo Core instructions (core >=4035.jic), provided by
  Henryk Richter.
o m68k: Referencing absolute-short labels and optimizing labels into
  absolute short addressing mode is allowed, when the label resides in
  an absolute ORG section.
o jagrisc: Fixed MOVE PC,Rn instruction.
o oldstyle-syntax: Internal symbol __RPTCNT can be used as iteration counter
  in the inner repeat loop.
o oldstyle-syntax: Numeric absolute symbol expansion is supported for macro
  parameters of the form \<symbol>.
o vobj-output: Ignoring internal/local symbols does not work. Now we
  create and use section symbols as a relocation reference.

- 1.8a (13.08.17)
o Increased number of fast-optimization passes from 50 to 200, as
  very large sources (> 60000 lines), with lots of branches to optimize,
  may still have optimization possibilities left after 50 passes.
o Repeat loops with an iterator symbol over an arbitrary sequence of values.
o m68k: New option -sd and directive OPT ON to enable optimizations of
  absolute references to the small data section into a base register
  relative addressing mode.
o m68k: New option -opt-jbra and directive OPT OB to convert all absolute
  jumps to external labels into 32-bit PC-relative branches (68020 and up).
o m68k: OPT O+ in Devpac compatibilty mode does not enable PC-relative
  optimizations (an explicit OPT A+ is needed).
o m68k: New Apollo Core instructions: PMULA, PMULH, STOREC, UNPACK1632.
o m68k: -m68020up option no longer includes Apollo Core.
o m68k: Devpac OPT Ln (with n=0,1,2,etc. for Atari) is recognized,
  although it has no effect at the moment.
o m68k: Suppressed index registers ZRn, which are explicitely written in
  the source, are no longer optimized away.
o PPC: -m option to select the CPU model starts working. By default the
  instruction set of a 32-bit PPC (G2, G3, G4) with AltiVec is supported.
o x86: Floating point constants (.float, .double) are supported.
o mot-syntax: Optional offset and length arguments for INCBIN
  (contributed by Andreas Larsson).
o std-syntax: New directives for gas compatibility: .irp and .irpc.
o bin-output: Fixed another sign-problem while padding between sections.
o hunk-output: Print source line for undefined symbols, when generating
  an executable.
o vobj-output: Ignore all internal/local symbols, except "*tmpNNNNNNNN*",
  which is required for certain relocations.

- 1.8 (16.05.17)
o External references in ORG or RORG sections are allowed.
o Option -depend only prints relative include file names, while the new
  option -dependall prints all included file names, also with absolute paths.
o m68k: Support for Apollo Core 68080 and AMMX ISA.
o m68k: MSP, ISP and MMUSR are no valid 68060 control registers.
o 6502: Fixed potential segfault during zero-page optimization (new since
  last version).
o jagrisc: Fixed SHLQ instruction.
o mot-syntax: Make NREF directive work for PhxAss compatibility. Allows
  optimization of absolute references to base-relative.
o std-syntax: Labels ending on '$' are only local when all preceding
  characters are digits.
o madmac-syntax: Fixed .long directive (which only aligned to even bytes).
o oldstyle-syntax: New options -i (ignore everything in the operand after a
  blank), -noc (no C-style constant prefixes) and -noi (no intel-style
  constant suffixes).
o oldstyle-syntax: Z80 supports multiple directives or instructions per
  line, separated by a ':' character.
o oldstyle-syntax: Fixed parser problem with nested repeat/endrepeat blocks.
o output-hunk: -kick1hunks must not forbid base relative relocs and
  references. It was supported by some 1.3 linkers (blink for example).

- 1.7h (14.02.17)
o Implemented a dynamic line buffer. No limitations on line lengths anymore.
o Octal escape sequences are limited to a maximum of three digits.
o Allow assembler text output (echo, printv) in offset sections.
o Print a warning for initialized data in a bss-type section. This already
  worked in the past (1.2c and later), but has been lost somewhere.
o Some single-character labels and symbols will be rejected (depending
  on the syntax module).
o -maxerrors=0 should print all errors in the source.
o Print expressions in the listing file and the test output in decimal and
  hexadecimal form.
o m68k: Immediate- and PC-relative destination addressing modes for 68851
  PMOVE are not allowed. PMOVE ea,PCSR doesn't exist.
o 6502: Perform zero-page optimization with a known label from an absolute
  section.
o std-syntax: Fixed problem with parentheses in character constants.
o oldstyle-syntax: New option -org=<address> to set the absolute base
  address of the program from the command line.
o oldstyle-syntax: Implemented some listing file directives, but without
  any function yet: nam, subttl, page, space.
o bin-output: Fixed output section sorting, which didn't work with some
  implementations of qsort().
o elf-output: Fixed external references in stabs.
o elf-output: Use a hash table for ELF symbols to speed up the output.
o hunk-output: Optimization to make it faster with many sections.
o test-output: Fixed crash when printing stabs without a value.

- 1.7g (02.11.16)
o Avoid a crash or internal error in some output modules, when an equate
  refers to an undefined (imported) symbol.
o m68k: Optimizing/translating to 68020+ addressing modes for MOVEM didn't
  work. For example MOVEM (40000,A0) was not automatically translated into
  a bd32 addressing mode, but had to be explicitely written as (40000.l,A0).
o m68k: Optimizing MOVEM was not attempted, when using a register list
  symbol in one operand and a label in the other.
o m68k: Fixed -opt-movem & -opt-speed optimization of MOVEM with two
  registers, which saw a wrong instruction size and moved following labels.
o aout-output: Instructions with more than one relocation were no longer
  supported since V1.7f.

- 1.7f (17.09.16)
o Print a warning when a constant is not representable using the target
  data type.
o Show warnings or errors when an expression overflows the backend's
  address data types.
o Warn about overflows caused by negative expressions in space directives.
o New option -chklabels makes vasm issue a warning when a label conflicts
  with a mnemonic or directive name.
o Reworked internal relocation representation.
o m68k: Base-displacement addressing modes and suppressed registers are
  allowed for CPU32. Just memory-indirect is illegal.
o m68k: Added FJcc mnemonics for GNU-as compatibility (-gas option).
o PPC: Added complete support for 403, 405, 440, 460, Book-E, e300 and e500
  instruction sets.
o 6800: Fixed a bug which suppressed command line options for syntax- and
  output-modules.
o 6800: Support for 6801/6803 compatible CPUs added (contributed by
  Adrien Destugues).
o ARM: Thumb-mode [PC,#imm] and [SP,#imm] addressing modes were not
  recognized.
p ARM: Fixed thumb-mode SP-adjustment instructions: ADD SP,#<9-bit unsigned>
  and SUB SP,#<9-bit unsigned> (missing).
o ARM: External subroutine calls in thumb-mode with BL were broken.
o x86: Fixed determining the operation size when last register is %DX.
o x86: 32-bit only instructions failed, when selecting a 32-bit cpu using
  the -m command line option.
o x86: Avoid Illegal Relocation error for calls and jumps in absolute mode.
o std-syntax: Data directives do no longer enforce natural alignment, for
  compatibility with GNU-as! Use the -align option to keep the old behaviour.
o std-syntax: '0f' is another allowed float-constant prefix for GNU-as
  compatibility.
o std-syntax: .stabs should support escape-characters in its string-field.
o std-syntax: Support progbits and nobits section type arguments for ELF
  compatibility.
o mot-syntax: Retain the possibility to use multiple ORG directives and
  output a real binary file, as before V1.7e. Only an ORG directive
  after a SECTION directive is now relocated within that section.
o mot-syntax: Added IFMI (=IFLT) and IFPL (=IFGE).
o mot-syntax: Fixed problems when macro arguments are followed by blanks
  and the -spaces option is given.
o mot-syntax: New directives inline and einline, to define an isolated block
  for local labels.
o mot-syntax: New directives ifmacrod and ifmacrond to conditionally assemble
  a block when a macro is defined or undefined (compatible with the same
  directives on the Barfly assembler).
o madmac-syntax: Make ORG behave like in mot-syntax.
o vobj-output: The byte-offset to a relocation now always defines the
  base for all relocation calculations (e.g. PC-relative).
o vobj-output: For little-endian the bit position in a byte of a reloc-field
  is now counted from right to left. You will need at least vlink V0.15b to
  link more complex little-endian relocations (e.g. ARM).
o hunk-output: -keepempty prevents the assembler from deleting empty sections.
o elf-output: -keepempty prevents the assembler from deleting empty sections.

- 1.7e (12.03.16)
o Ability to print the source line also in output module error messages.
o Current PC symbol in absolute code regions was erroneously relocated to
  the section's base address.
o Make sure that labels from absolute code regions are not relocated.
o m68k: Fix for a bug introduced in last version: fmovem list,(An) and
  fmovem list,(d,An) were no longer recognized as valid for M68k FPUs.
o PPC: Fixed mtvscr instruction, which uses the vB field instead of vD.
o ARM: Accept the new SVC mnemonic as an alias for SWI.
o ARM: Fixed macros. Previously only three characters for a macro name were
  allowed. Qualifiers are not allowed on ARM macros.
o std-syntax: Permit the '$' as start character and in the middle of a
  label (note: a terminating '$' still defines a local label!).
o std-syntax: A missing last macro argument no longer causes an error
  message, but is replaced by a default value (when defined) or an empty
  string.
o std-syntax: .org directive defines the offset from the current section's
  start address when it appears within a section (GNU-as compatibility).
o mot-syntax: ORG directive can be used within any normal section to define
  a block of code relocated to an absolute start address.
o mot-syntax: Numeric absolute symbol expansion is supported for macro
  parameters of the form \<symbol> or \<$symbol> (hexadecimal value).
o madmac-syntax: Removed the -rorg option, which is the default behaviour
  now.
o oldstyle-syntax: The special macro argument \@ is replaced by an
  underscore, followed by a six-digit number again, as before V1.7c.
o tos-output: Check for overflows in relocation fields.
o aout-output: Fixed a crash since last version, when embedding absolute
  code regions in a section.

- 1.7d (05.10.15)
o New option -depend to print the list of file dependencies for the
  assembled source with the given options and conditions.
o New output module for Motorola srecord format, contributed by Joseph
  Zatarski. It can be selected with the -Fsrec option.
o m68k: Replace all short-branches, except BSR, which have a zero distance
  by a no-operation instruction. Now we use LEA (A6),A6 for no operation
  as NOP has a special meaning for certain 68k models.
o m68k: A zero width in bitfield instructions is accepted. It is equivalent
  to a width of 32 and used in some sources.
o m68k: New option -gas enables GNU-as specific mnemonics and additions.
  68020/68881 is selected by default.
o m68k: New option -sgs to enable & as an additional immediate operand
  prefix (SGS assembler).
o m68k: New option -no-fpu to ignore any FPU directives or options.
o m68k: Support immediate register list masks also for FMOVEM.
o m68k: jbra/jbsr are always converted to branches, when the selected CPU
  supports 32-bit branches (gas compatibility).
o tr3200: Add data relocations. Fix PC-relative RJMP instruction.
o ARM: Accept an additional operand after an immediate constant to specify
  the even rotate-count (0-30). Usually vasm does that automatically.
o mot-syntax: The symbol __LINE__ always contains the current line number.
o std-syntax: Add .even directive.
o std-syntax: Besides 0f also allow 0r as a floating point constant prefix.
o aout-output: Fixed common symbols.
o aout-output: Implemented stabs support.

- 1.7c (15.05.15)
o Complete redesign of the internal macro handling, which gives each
  syntax module more possibilities for individual macro features.
o New syntax module: madmac, which tries to be compatible to the Atari
  Madmac assembler syntax, used for 6502, 68000 and Jaguar RISC targets.
o New CPU backend for the virtual Trillek TR3200 CPU (known from 0x10c).
o Allow arithmetic operations with more than one label from absolute ORG
  sections (like label1|label2). Support also depends on cpu backend and
  should work at least in data for most backends now.
o Stop parsing a file at CP/M EOF character (0x1a), as seen in some sources.
o No longer allow redefining a symbol, defined by an equ/equiv directive,
  with a set-directive.
o Fixed problems with escape character sequences in strings inside a
  macro definition, when syntax module supports escape characters.
o m68k: In MULx.L Dn,Dl the Dh bits (bit 0-2, 2nd word) are undefined. Most
  assemblers set Dh=Dl, similar to Dr=Dq in DIVx.L. So should we.
o m68k: New option -regsymredef allows redefinition of register symbols
  while parsing the source.
o m68k: Fixed "OPT 0" in PhxAss compatibility mode (broken since V1.7),
  which made all branches 16-bit size.
o m68k: Register lists defined by REG, EQURL, FREQ, FEQURL must not be
  redefinable.
o PPC: Support for floating point data constants.
o jagrisc: Added absolute and relative 5 bit source operand relocations.
  Fixed relative JR relocations.
o jagrisc: Fixed (R14+Rn) addressing mode.
o jagrisc: New JRISC specific directives: GPU, DSP, REGEQU, EQUR, REGUNDEF,
  EQURUNDEF, CCDEF, CCUNDEF (madmac/smac compatible).
o z80: Fixed RST (again), when referencing labels from an absolute section.
o mot-syntax: New option -allmp makes all 36 macro arguments available, also
  in standard vasm mode (no PhxAss or Devpac compatibility required).
o mot-syntax: New option -warncomm to warn about blanks in the operand
  field, which may start an unwanted comment.
o mot-syntax: CNOP fills the padding words with NOP instructions in an
  M68k code section.
o mot-syntax: The optional third argument of the SECTION directive may be
  written as a numerical constant to define any memory attributes (hunk
  format only).
o mot-syntax: New directive WEAK, to declare a symbol having weak binding,
  for those output formats which support it.
o mot-syntax: New directive COMMON, to create a common symbol.
o mot-syntax: Made PRINTT and PRINTV directives more compatible to AsmOne.
o mot-syntax: Fixed RS.x without operand (same as RS.x 0).
o std-syntax: The standard GNU-as macro syntax, with named arguments,
  default values and qualifiers, is supported now. Macro names became
  case-insensitive.
o std-syntax: Directives are case-insensitive.
o std-syntax: New optional, non-standard, third argument for the .section
  directive defines target specific memory attributes (currently hunk
  format only).
o std-syntax: .b/.w/.l extensions do not belong to an identifier, when
  the CPU is M68k.
o std-syntax: Directives to define floating point constants in data:
  .float, .single and .double.
o std-syntax: .equiv directive. Works like .set and .equ, but cannot be
  redefined.
o aout-output: Absolute ORG sections are appended to a .text section.
  Support for Jaguar, which uses MID 0.
o bin-output: Sort sections by their start address before writing them.
o hunk-output: Align M68k code sections with NOP instructions.
o hunk-output: Supports any memory attributes in objects and executables.
o hunk-output: Warn about unsupported weak symbols.
o hunk-output: Fixed illegal memory access with unreferenced common symbols.
o hunk-output: Automatically generate short relocation hunks (HUNK_DREL32)
  in executables, when possible and not forbidden by a -kick1hunks option.
o hunk-output: Support for 32-bit PC-relative relocations in executables
  (available since AmigaOS3.0).
o tos-ouput: Warn about unsupported weak symbols.
o elf-output: Add support for jagrisc (EM_JAGRISC = 0x9004). This is an
  unofficial definition done by the Jaguar scene.
o aout-output: For M68k use the SUN010 or SUN020 MID, depending on the
  highest cpu type being used in the source.

- 1.7b (28.12.14)
o Fixed stack overflow and crash when using recursively defined symbols.
  Bug was present since introducing new 128-bit and float expressions in 1.7.
o Issue a warning when a symbol was declared as external, but nowhere
  referenced in the source.
o m68k: Do not optimize MOVEM to MOVEA or MOVE when predecrement or
  postincrement addressing mode is used with a register from the list.
o m68k: The Devpac directive OPT X (xdebug) works now as expected for
  hunk-format object files and for TOS executables.
o m68k: In Devpac-compatibility mode (-devpac) the __LK symbol is predefined
  and reflects the output file type: 0 = Atari executable, 3 = Amiga object,
  4 = Amiga executable, 99 = all others which are unknown to Devpac.
o m68k: MOVEM #list,-(An) must not reverse the bit mask automatically, but
  expect an already reversed one.
o m68k: BTST #n,#m is illegal.
o m68k: LEA (d32,An),Am translation to MOVE.L/ADD.L stopped working with
  V1.6c. Fixed again.
o ARM: TEQP, TSTP, CMNP and CMPP were missing for AA2.
o ARM: Fixed recognition of addressing mode and condition codes with
  instructions written in upper case.
o 6502: New option -c02 to enable 65C02 instructions.
o mot-syntax: In PhxAss- and Devpac-compatibility mode only the directives
  which are known by the emulated assembler are supported.
o mot-syntax: RS, SO and FO offset directives use an aligned offset in
  Devpac-compatibility mode or when the -align option is given.
o std-syntax: The optional third argument of .balign/.p2align/.align is now
  really supported and defines a maximum number of padding bytes.
o std-syntax: New directives: .balignw, .balignl, .p2alignw, .p2alignl,
  .zero, .swbeg.
o std-syntax: .word should rather define 16-bit than 32-bit constants.
o std-syntax: .local followed by .comm should be the same as .lcomm.
o oldstyle-syntax: Fixed recognizion of .equ/.eq/.set/.mac/.macro with
  -dotdir option.
o hunk-output: New option -linedebug automatically generates a LINE DEBUG
  hunk for the input source.
o aout-output: Always generate an external reference to a weak symbol,
  even when the symbol is defined.
o elf-output: Always generate an external reference to a weak symbol,
  even when the symbol is defined.

- 1.7a (25.08.14)
o Addend for "external_label-current_section_label" PC-relative relocation
  was not calculated correctly.
o Do not generate relocations with absolute ORG sections. External
  references from such a section are illegal.
o Fixed PC-relative references between absolute ORG sections.
o Defining a macro with the same name as a directive or mnemonic no longer
  causes and error, but a warning. Like most other assemblers vasm will
  ignore this macro definition.
o New option -unsshift to make right-shift operations unsigned (logical),
  depending on the CPU's target address type.
o Fixed some problems caused by signed sizes and section offsets.
o Fixed -x option again. It only printed the first undefined symbol.
o When specifying a listing file with -L <name> the source was not
  included. The default is now to include it. Can still be controlled
  by list/nolist directives.
o Allow printing of multiple optimization messages for a single source
  line (-showopt).
o Fixed infinite loop with huge octal and binary values, which got a decimal
  point or exponent.
o Automatically rearrange nodes from "const-symbol-symbol", so that
  "symbol-symbol" is evaluated first, as it may yield a constant.
o Fix compiling with pre MSVC 2013 versions (missing strtold()).
o m68k: -opt-fconst, which is enabled in vasm-default mode since 1.6a,
  was broken for double to single precision conversions, as it moved
  following labels by 4 bytes.
o m68k: -devpac compatibility includes unsigned right-shifts.
o m68k: NEAR CODE from PhxAss is supported and translates all absolute
  JMP/JSR with an external symbol into 16-bit PC-relative addressing mode.
o m68k: New option -sc to set small code mode (same as NEAR CODE directive).
o mot-syntax: SECTION with a single argument defaults to a code section,
  except when the name is "data" or "bss".
o hunk-output: New option -kick1hunks to use only those hunk types and
u  external reference types which have been valid at the time of Kickstart
  1.x for compatibility with old assembler sources and old linkers.
o tos-output: A 16-bit aligned section size must also show up in the header.
o tos-output: New option -monst for writing Devpac MonST-compatible
  symbols.

- 1.7 (02.07.14)
o Labels in an absolute ORG section have no longer any restrictions
  regarding arithmetic and logical operations on them.
o New expression evaluation module. Now also supports floating point and
  huge integer (128-bit) expressions in all backends.
o New CPU backend for the Jaguar GPU and DSP RISC processors.
o The path to the input source file is automatically added to the list
  of include paths to search.
o Fixed a serious bug with offset sections. Labels from those sections
  were still treated as real labels, instead of expressions (offsets),
  until the final pass.
o The value of the repetition symbol (REPTN) was reset to -1 when
  recursively calling a macro or entering an include file inside a repetition.
o The number of 50 fast optimization passes may not be enough in some
  cases. So this phase will be extended by another pass whenever a pass
  included no modifications which made the code larger.
o Exit immediately when the maximum number of errors has been reached and
  not before printing an additional error.
o Escape code handling in string constants is no longer the default. It
  has to be explicitely enabled using the -esc option. Although, it is
  still the default in the std syntax module.
o 6800: Added some missing 6800 instructions (addb, dec).
o 6800: Labels are always addressed in extended mode. Use the < prefix
  to override that.
o 6800: Accept lda and ldb as an alias for ldaa and ldab.
o z80: Data definitions in parentheses, although unnecessary, should be
  allowed.
o m68k: Never try to optimize JMP/JSR (label,PC).
o m68k: Allow bad instruction aliases, like movea when the destination is
  not An, but warn about it.
o m68k: New option -guess-ext makes the assembler accept a bad size extension,
  as long as the instruction is unsized or there is just a single size
  possible. This is the default setting for PhxAss- and Devpac-mode.
o m68k: The size extension of branch instructions is completely ignored,
  also when illegal, if -guess-ext and -opt-allbra are specified (-phxass).
o m68k: The PhxAss OPT directive must not reset the -opt-allbra flag. It is
  always enabled in PhxAss compatibility mode.
o ARM: Supports 64-bit data.
o mot-syntax: New directives import (same as xref) and export (same as xdef)
  for Atari PureC/AHCC compatibility.
o mot-syntax: FAIL is no longer fatal and displays a normal user error
  in the final pass.
o mot-syntax: Labels terminated by a colon must not start on the first
  column of a line.
o mot-syntax: FEQU directive to assign floating point expressions to a symbol.
o mot-syntax: EQU.<size> and =.<size> to assign floating point expressions
  in PhxAss compatibility mode.
o std-syntax: .comm and .lcomm will now use the default alignments from
  the current CPU backend.
o std-syntax: .err is no longer fatal and displays a normal user error in
  the final pass.
o std-syntax: .abort is no longer a fatal error, but terminates assembly
  at that point with a normal error.
o oldstyle-syntax: FAIL is no longer fatal and displays a normal user error
  in the final pass.
o oldstyle-syntax: Supports intel-style constant suffixes (like 'h' to
  indicate hexadecimal).
o oldstyle-syntax: A terminating colon on a label is also allowed before
  an equate, set or macro directive.
o oldstyle-syntax: Added IFD and IFND (same as IFDEF and IFNDEF).
o tos-output: Fixed a potential problem allocating 0 bytes, when there are
  no reloctions in a file.

- 1.6c (09.02.14)
o New resolver strategies to prevent infinite oscillating optimizations.
  After 50 passes the resolver switches into a safe mode, where only a
  single instruction per pass is optimized. When there are still
  instructions left, which alternate between different sizes, then optimization
  will be disabled for them. This was mainly a problem with aggressive M68k
  branch optimizations.
o New CPU backend for the 6800 family, contributed by Esben Norby.
  Currently the 6800 and the 68HC11 models are supported.
o Quit with a fatal error when the internal line buffer (4096 bytes)
  overflows, before overwriting innocent memory.
o Forbid structure recursion with a fatal error. Otherwise all available
  memory will be allocated.
o Limit the maximum number of macro recursion levels to 1000. Can be
  adjusted by specifying the new -maxmacrecurs=<n> option.
o Always converts path separators for the assembler's host OS, defined by
  AMIGA, ATARI or MSDOS in the Makefile. Default is Unix.
o Expression parser: binary And, Or, Xor operators have now higher priority
  than multiply and divide (same as Devpac).
o Also warn about auto-aligned data.
o m68k: Range check with unsigned operands didn't work when the value
  is negative (for example ADDQ #-10,D0).
o m68k: Allow outer displacement as first expression in front of the
  brackets for Devpac compatibility: (od,[bd,An,Xn])
o m68k: Warn about bad displacement positioning when not in Devpac
  compatibility mode.
o m68k: OPT X (xdebug) is ignored now, as it has very different meaning
  in Devpac-Atari and Devpac-Amiga.
o m68k: Allow a wrong size extension in Devpac mode, as long as the correct
  size can be guessed (e.g. moveq.w -> moveq.l).
o m68k: Support OPTC directive and __OPTC symbol in PhxAss-compatibility mode.
o m68k: BASEREG may be reused for the same register without ENDB in PhxAss-
  compatibility mode.
o m68k: ENDB doesn't not need to specify a register in PhxAss-compatibility
  mode, as long as it is unambigious.
o m68k: An equate symbol used as displacement in a BASEREG operand, which
  is defined later in the source, no longer generates an error.
o m68k: Removed useless optimization for LINK An,#0 into PEA/MOVE.
o m68k: Optimizing ASL #2,Dn into two ADDs is only allowed with -opt-lsl,
  because it modifies the V-flag.
o m68k: Generally all optimizations which result in multiple instructions
  need an additional -opt-speed option from now on.
o mot-syntax: Allow blanks in the operand and within expressions, when
  -phxass mode is enabled.
o mot-syntax: In -phxass mode '*' comments can be used everywhere, but
  have to be preceded by a space-character (blanks, tabs, etc.).
o mot-syntax: For compatibility with other assemblers (PhxAss, Barfly, etc.)
  the SO directive will also manipulate the RS-counter (and the __RS symbol)
  and vice versa.
o mot-syntax: -phxass mode defines the symbol _PHXASS_ with value 2, so it
  is possible to differentiate it from the original (value 1).
o mot-syntax: When no output name is given in PhxAss mode, a default name
  is constructed from the input name (name or name.o).
o oldstyle-syntax: Some new directives, used in 68HC11 sources: bsz, rmb, zmb,
  fcb, fcc, fdb.
o bin-output: Fixed misdetection of overlapping sections, caused by signed
  section origins (e.g. >= 0x8000 on 6502).

- 1.6b (01.05.13)
o Display a warning when instructions are automatically aligned. This might
  help to find missing align directives and avoid bugs.
o Display an error when a macro name conflicts with a mnemonic or directive.
o Expression symbols (equates) which are based on label are exported as
  an offseted label from the same section as the base.
o m68k: Fixed gas-compatible mnemonics: JB<cc> -> J<cc>.
o m68k: Fixed ColdFire ISA-B optimization "AND.L #$ff/#$ffff,Dn ->
  MVZ.B/W Dn,Dn", which always used a D0 source register.
o m68k: Scale factor 8 is allowed for ColdFire chips with an FPU.
o PPC: Fixed relocations, which had been broken since 1.6a.
o x86: Fixed data relocations, which had been broken since 1.6a.
o mot-syntax: A comma in the comment field of an operand-less instruction
  had been misinterpreted as an operand separator.
o mot-syntax: Allow labels on the same line as an ENDC/ENDIF directive.
o mot-syntax: Print the source and line number of the corresponding IF
  directive, when the ENDC/ENDIF directive is missing.
o std-syntax: Allow labels on the same line as an .endif directive.
o std-syntax: When # is used as the first non-blank character on a line,
  then it can still start a comment, even for architectures which define
  a different comment character (e.g. ARM, M68k).
o tos-output: Fixed uninitialized relocation pointer, which could lead to
  illegal memory accesses.

- 1.6a (02.04.13)
o The vasm core supports structure definitions. A structure name can
  either be used as a directive to initialize data, or in expressions
  as the structure's size. Its fields are available as local labels to
  the global structure name, defining the field offsets.
  (Originally contributed by Romain Giot, modified by Frank Wille.)
o The vasm core supports the creation of offsets sections. The contents
  of such a section is not included in the output file and their labels
  can be referenced as absolute offset symbols.
o Fixed -x option, which didn't display undefined symbols when there had
  been other errors in the source.
o m68k: Division optimization (-opt-div, directive opt od) must not try
  to optimize signed divisions, except with 1/-1. DIVS rounds towards
  zero, while ASR rounds downwards.
o m68k: Fixed immediate extended precision operands, which load "0.0" or
  "-0.0".
o m68k: -opt-fconst is enabled by default, except in Devpac and PhxAss mode.
  Fixed a bug which prevented optimization of extended precision 0.0 to
  single precision.
o PPC: Register symbols are no longer exported into most object formats.
o z80: Forbid operations between different index registers, like ix/iy
  pairs and ld ixl,(ix+0) (fixed by Romain Giot).
o z80: Improved detection of indirect operands in parentheses (fixed by
  Romain Giot).
o oldstyle-syntax: STRUCT and ENDSTRUCT directives for supporting
  structures.
o mot-syntax: Devpac-compatible CARGS directive.
o mot-syntax: New directive OFFSET. Devpac-compatible, but additionally to
  Devpac it allows any directive or instruction within such a section.
o vobj-output: Output was broken since 1.6, when relocations based on
  the current-pc symbol had been used.

- 1.6 (29.12.12)
o New instruction/operand parser. Can handle instruction availability,
  depending on selected cpu-type, and optional operands in common code.
o Now using the faster djb2 hash table algorithm. Tuned hash table sizes
  for PPC, M68k and x86. Bigger symbol and macro hash tables.
o Symbol distances from two different sections are supported, when the
  second symbol comes from the current section, by using a pc-relative
  relocation with an appropriate addend.
o The vasm core supports named arguments of the form "\identifier". It
  can be enabled by syntax modules on demand.
o "\@?" can be used in a macro to push the current id below the top item
  on the stack.
o "\()" can be used to separate a macro name from the subsequent context.
o Macro and repeat directives in comments could have caused some confusion.
o Support for relocated origin blocks (RORG-blocks) in absolute output,
  which assign all labels in this block to a different base address,
  although the code is still physically placed at the original address.
o Only produce a listing file when -L option is given. A nolist directive at
  the end of the source will not prevent writing of a listing file anymore.
o Do not include internal assembler symbols in the object file.
o m68k: B<cc> *+$80 is now optimized to B<cc>.B as well, because the
  instruction will be 2 bytes smaller after that. Fall back to *+$7e
  optimization, when we need too many passes due to oscillating instruction
  sizes. Usually caused by an alignment directive before the destination label.
o m68k: Optimize CMP.W #0,An to TST.L An (TST.W An was wrong!).
o m68k: New optimization: DIVU/DIVS.L #x,Dn can be optimized into LSR/ASR
  when x is a power of 2 and between 2 and 256. Negative values are handled
  by appending a NEG.L. DIVU/DIVS.W #1 is supported for ColdFire ISA_B/C by
  MVZ.W. DIVS.W #-1 by using NEG.W first. The new option is called -opt-div.
o m68k: New optimization: ANDI.? #-1,<ea> is optimized to TST.? <ea>.
  ANDI.L #$ff/$ffff,Dn is optimized to MVZ.B/W Dn,Dn for ColdFire ISA_B/C.
o m68k: New optimizations: ORI #0,<ea> and EORI #0,<ea> are optimized to
  TST <ea>. AND #0,<ea> is optimized to CLR <ea>, when allowed.
o m68k: New optimization: LEA 0,An is optimized to SUBA.L An,An.
o PPC: Reworked cpu selection.
o PPC: Reworked operand parser and evaluater. mfdec is now recognized.
o z80: Fixed crashes and internal errors when an expression creates an
  illegal relocation.
o z80: Operands in parentheses were not allowed for defining data.
o z80: A '#' prefix selects hexadecimal radix, as used in some assemblers.
o z80: Fixed a bug with using invalid register-pairs in some addressing modes.
o z80: Added the hidden instruction OUT (C),0 (contributed by Romain Giot).
o 6502: Improved detection of indirect addressing modes. (expr)+(expr) and
  (expr)+expr are no longer indirect.
o mot-syntax: PhxAss-compatibility mode allows blanks in operands.
o mot-syntax: Ignore AsmOne AUTO directive.
o mot-syntax: Although ignored, load, jumpptr and jumperr should accept
  non-constant expressions.
o mot-syntax: Internal symbol REPTN can be used as iteration counter in
  the inner repeat loop.
o mot-syntax: New directives: IFB and IFNB to check whether a macro argument
  is blank or non-blank.
o oldstyle-syntax: Enabled support for named macro arguments.
o oldstyle-syntax: Fixed detection of endmac, endmacro, endrep and endrepeat.
o oldstyle-syntax: Conditional directives also allow non-constant expressions,
  like label-differences. But the expression has to evaluate in the first
  assembler pass.
o oldstyle-syntax: assert directive, displays an error message when the
  expression is false.
o oldstyle-syntax: Allow access to any local symbol in the source by using
  the syntax "global_name.local_name". The '.' is otherwise forbidden in
  the middle of a label now.
o oldstyle-syntax: New directives rorg, rend, phase, dephase for a relocated
  label origin.
o oldstyle-syntax: print a warning when alignment is too big.
o oldstyle-syntax: LIST and NOLIST directives to control listing file output.
o oldstyle-syntax: INCBIN got two optional arguments to skip bytes at the
  beginning of a file and to restrict the size of the included data
  (contributed by Romain Giot).
o oldstyle-syntax: New directive abyte, which adds a constant offset to
  each byte written (contributed by Romain Giot).
o oldstyle-syntax: New directive ifused (contributed by Romain Giot).
o std-syntax: Implemented .abort, .err and .fail directives.
o std-syntax: Allow non-constant expressions for conditional directives,
  with the same restrictions as in the other syntax modules.
o std-syntax: print a warning when alignment is too big.
o std-syntax: .list and .nolist directives to control listing file output.
o std-syntax: Enabled support for named macro arguments.
o std-syntax: New directives: .ifb and .ifnb to check whether a macro
  argument is blank or non-blank.

- 1.5c (10.12.11)
o Define a __VASM symbol to identify the assembler.
o Reworked sources to use typedefs from stdint.h where appropriate.
o Fixed vobjdump to regard all information from an object as unsigned,
  except symbol values and reloc addends and masks.
o m68k: Assign the current cpu/fpu/mmu type to the __VASM symbol.
o m68k: Define the __G2 symbol in Devpac compatibility mode.
o ARM: Fixed U-bit handling and sign in load/store addressing modes
  dealing with labels (which are translated into PC-relative).
o ARM: The I-bit in halfword transfers must be flipped.
o z80: Fixed error message when 8-bit data is out of range (-128 .. 255).
o z80: Allow the offset to be an external symbol in ld (ix+offset).
o z80: Accept JP HL besides JP (HL), as most (?) assemblers do for
  convenience.
o std-syntax: Section ".text","acrwx" is default when no .section or
  .org directive is present.
o oldstyle-syntax: Section ".text","acrwx" is default when no SECTION or
  ORG directive is present.
o oldstyle-syntax: A section directive without attribute defaults to
  "acrwx".
o oldstyle-syntax: New option -autoexp to automatically export all
  non-local symbols.

- 1.5b (05.08.11)
o m68k: Fixed -no-opt option.
o m68k: Fixed the (hopefully) last possibility for oscillating branch
  optimizations. Example: bra lab; bra lab; lab:
o x86: Enabled experimental 64-bit support. The new option -m64 allows the
  usage of 64-bit instructions. New directive .code64.
o 6502: Fixed ASL, ROR and ROL with addressing mode ABS,X (by Mauricio
  M. Lucero).
o 6502,z80: Support /256 %256 and &255 operations with labels and generate
  the appropriate relocations (Dominic Morris).
o z80: Bad relocations are now flagged by the correct error message.
o elf-output: Support for ELF64 and x86_64 relocations.

- 1.5a (01.04.11)
o Fixed -nocase option to make it no longer modify external symbol names,
  which then broke linking.
o Made IfDef and IfNotDef directives work with local symbols.
o Additionally to the standard \@ to insert a unique ID within a macro the
  symbols \@! and \@@ are supported to put the current ID onto the stack or
  pull the last ID from the stack.
o PPC: Fixed detection of missing and extra operands.
o m68k: FPU register names may be used for symbols, as long as no FPU code
  generation was enabled.
o m68k: Fixed a branch optimization bug, which occurs when the effect of
  all translations is nullified, so that no label changes its address in
  one pass.
o oldstyle-syntax: Fixed pc-symbol ('*') assignments. "* = <addr>" didn't
  work in the first column.
o mot-syntax: Do not crash on PRINTT without operand, but just print
  a newline.
o mot-syntax: Dots ('.') are allowed everywhere in the label, not only
  at the beginning, when either the -devpac option or the new -ldots
  option was specified.
o mot-syntax: Any local symbol in the source can be referenced using the
  global_name\local_name syntax, as in PhxAss.
o mot-syntax: When OUTPUT is used with ".name" then it is not only appended
  to the output name, but it also replaces a possible extension in it
  (Devpac compatibility).
o mot-syntax: Option -localu makes local symbols start with an underscore
  instead of a dot (from Devpac).
o vobj-output: A file without sections no longer causes an internal error.

- 1.5 (01.12.10)
o A "\\" inside a macro has to be replaced by "\" when the assembler is
  in a mode without escape-code handling (e.g. Devpac-compatibility).
o When the syntax module supports CARG, then \., \+ and \- are accepted
  to select a macro parameter with the index of the CARG-symbol. \+ will
  post-increment CARG and \- post-decrement it (PhxAss compatibility).
o Space objects are allowed to use a relocation as fill pattern. Enhanced
  all output modules to support space-relocations.
o Immediately close input files, after reading them in. So they are
  available for modification before the first assembler pass starts.
o In case of an error or warning the respective source text line is now
  printed below the message.
o Print a short report about sections and their size, when successfully
  finishing assembly in verbose mode.
o m68k: Fixed a crash when using the ColdFire SATS instruction with
  optimization enabled.
o m68k: Define symbols __CPU, __FPU and __MMU in PhxAss-compatibility mode,
  according to the current cpu setting.
o m68k: Support Devpac optimizations OPT o3 - o12. Generic vasm
  optimizations are no longer active in Devpac-compatibility mode. They
  can be controlled with the new "OPT og" directive.
o m68k: Support optimizations which result in multiple instructions in a
  clean way. Fixed the "LEA (d32,An),Am" and "Bcc out of range" hacks to
  make use of it.
o m68k: New optimization: <op>.L #x,An is optimized to <op>.W #x,An when
  x fits into a word. This mainly affects CMP instructions, as MOVE, ADD
  and SUB were already handled in previous versions.
o m68k: New optimization: LEA (d,An),An is optimized to ADDQ/SUBQ #d,An.
o m68k: New optimization: ASL #1 is optimized to ADD and ASL #2
  (byte/word only) into two ADDs. LSL will also be optimized, when the
  new option -opt-lsl is given.
o m68k: New optimization: MULU/MULS.L #x,Dn can be optimized into LSL/ASL
  when x is a power of 2 and between 0 and 256. Negative values are handled
  by appending a NEG.L. MULU.W is supported for ColdFire ISA_B/C by MVZ.W.
  MULS.W by using EXT.L first. The new option is called -opt-mul.
o m68k: New optimization: MOVEM with two registers is translated
  into two separate MOVE instructions. Requires -opt-movem option, as long
  as not only address registers are loaded.
o m68k: New optimization under -opt-fconst: FDIV #m,FPn is optimized to
  FMUL #1/m,FPn when m is a power of 2 (i.e. the mantissa is zero).
o m68k: New optimization: LINK An,#0 is optimized to PEA (An) and
  MOVE.L A7,An.
o m68k: New ColdFire optimization: MVZ/MVS #x,Dn to MOVEQ #x,Dn.
o m68k: The new optimization flag -opt-speed makes vasm optimize for
  speed, even if this would increase the code size (Example: asl.l #2,Dn ->
  add Dn,Dn + add Dn,Dn for 68000-68040).
o m68k: Bugfix: MOVEM #list,<ea> and MOVEM <ea>,#list were never optimized.
o m68k: MOVE SR/CCR instructions were not recognized for ColdFire.
o m68k: ColdFire ISA_B allows #<xxx>,(d16,An) for MOVE.B and MOVE.W.
o m68k: MOVEC should not warn about a correct .L operation size.
o m68k: MOV3Q is only available for ColdFire ISA_B and ISA_C. Also don't
  optimize to MOV3Q for ISA_A.
o m68k: The OPT directive supports vasm-specific extensions for optimizations
  not known to Devpac (-opt-movem/clr/pea/st/lsl/mul/fconst/brajmp/speed).
o m68k: OPT p=<type> has to support multiple types, separated by a '/'.
o m68k: New directive INITNEAR (from PhxAss). For simplicity it will
  always generate a reference to _LinkerDB.
o m68k: Fixed the CPU directives to recognize ColdFire v2, v3, v4, v4e and
  made it case-insensitive.
o m68k: Made -opt-fconst work with FMOVE.D #0,FPn.
o m68k: PC-relative optimization didn't work for "TST label" and cpu>=68020.
o m68k: New option -showcrit. Similar to -showopt, but only shows
  optimizations which may have side effects (refer to the documentation).
o m68k: Bad extension warning (2006) has become an error.
o z80: Implemented a lo/hi-byte operator similar to 6502.
o z80: Relative jumps over a distance of more than 128 bytes must cause an
  error message.
o mot-syntax: Supports CARG.
o mot-syntax: IF directives support the current-pc symbol (*).
o mot-syntax: Support REM and EREM from AsmOne, to skip everything between
  those two directives.
o mot-syntax: Up to 36 macro arguments in PhxAss-compatibility mode.
o mot-syntax: Support CODE_C, DATA_C, BSS_C (and the *_F-variants).
o oldstyle-syntax: EQU and SET should be case-insensitive, like the rest
  of the directives.
o oldstyle-syntax: Fixed ORG for the case when '$' is used as a hex-prefix
  and the current-pc-symbol at the same time (Z80).
o oldstyle-syntax: Also support local symbols starting with a '.'.
o hunk-output: Fixed -databss option, which didn't recognize DCB/BLK
  directives with a non-zero fill pattern.

- 1.4f (02.08.10)
o The parser accepts "\n", "\r\n", "\n\r" and a single "\r" as line-endings.
o Avoid infinite loop when a source line is too long.
o Constant block directives (e.g. DCB in mot-syntax) allow any kind of
  expression for the fill-value now.
o Fixed constant block directives with a size > 8 bytes (e.g. DCB.X).
o Quit with an error when a section needs too many passes to resolve.
  This happens when the user does something stupid like
  start: .space end-start
  end:
o Ignore rest of the line after an end-macro or end-repetition directive.
o Support for the Seka/AsmOne ~ binary-operator, which is a synonym for
  ^ (exclusive-or).
o m68k: Also accept ([An,bd]...) instead of ([bd,An]...) for Devpac/AsmOne
  compatibility.
o m68k: Recognize linea, line_a, linef and line_f mnemonics.
o m68k: Make BASEREG directive only take effect when a program label
  was referenced together with a register (i.e. not with (4,A5)).
o mot-syntax: Allow up to 35 macro parameters in Devpac compatibility mode.
o mot-syntax: Accept macro-names starting with a dot. But even then they
  are still of global scope.
o mot-syntax: RORG directive.
o mot-syntax: Support for PRINTT and PRINTV from AsmOne and ECHO from PhxAss.
o mot-syntax: DR directive from AsmOne to build PC-relative data tables.
o mot-syntax: New directives: ODD, PAGE, NOPAGE, IMAGE (same as INCBIN).
o mot-syntax: Directives ENTRY, EXTRN and GLOBAL are recognized and are
  identical to XDEF.
o mot-syntax: Some directives without any function just for compatbility:
  JUMPERR, MASK2, LLEN, SPC.

- 1.4e (09.06.10)
o m68k: Fixed some problems with fmovem when using register list symbols.
o m68k: fsmove and fdmove were missing the coprocessor ID 1 in their opcodes.
o m68k: fsmove/fsmove FPn,FPm addressing mode was missing.
o m68k: Fixed moves <ea>,Rn.
o std-syntax: n$ is recognized as local symbol.

- 1.4d (13.12.09)
o A macro parameter containing blanks or commas may be enclosed between
  < and > to be treated as a single parameter (Devpac).
o Support for \?n (length of parameter n) and \# (number of parameters)
  in macros (Devpac).
o No longer forget macro parameters in a repetition-block within a macro.
o Empty strings in a data definition directive (e.g. .byte "") are
  ignored instead of generating a 0-byte.
o m68k: Also accept swapped displacement and base-register in indexed
  addressing modes, e.g.: (An,d,Rn). Devpac/AsmOne compatibility.
o m68k: Fixed "pmove mmusr" (68030).
o m68k: BRA.B *+2 is translated into a NOP when no optimization is allowed.
o mot-syntax: The blank-separated comment field after DC.B "string" was not
  recognized (needed an explicit comment-character).
o mot-syntax: Offset directives RS, SO and FO are no longer limited to
  constant expressions.
o mot-syntax: Conditional directives also allow non-constant expressions,
  like label-differences. But the expression has to evaluate in the first
  assembler pass.
o mot-syntax: Predefines offsets symbols __RS, __SO and __FO with value 0
  in -devpac mode.
o tos-output: Section alignment must be 16 bits, not 32. With another two
  zero-bytes for 32-bit alignment the OS couldn't see any relocations.

- 1.4c (05.11.09)
o Changed operator priorities from C-like to assembler-like. This means
  that shifts and bitwise operators have a higher priority now (refer to
  the documentation for details).
o Comparison operators and logical and/or operators now return -1 for True,
  instead of 1. This is more common for assemblers.
o Recognize '=' and '<>' operators for equality and inequality (additional
  to '==' and '!=').
o Deletes the output file when there were any errors.
o -nocase option could run into an internal error when there were escape
  characters ('\') in a string (since 1.4b).
o m68k: Accept addressing mode syntax (Rn,d) and treat as (d,Rn) for
  compatibility with other assemblers.
o m68k: Fixed several "displacement out of range" errors.
  - (bd,ZAn,Rn) when bd didn't fit into 16 bits and has no size extension. 
  - ([bd.l],Rn,od) when od has no size extension and doesn't fit into 16 bits.
  - (d,PC,Rn) when d is absolute, has no size, and doesn't fit into 8 bits.
o mot-syntax: With -phxass option, macro names are case-insensitive.
o hunk-output: Report undefined symbols in hunkexe-mode as such, instead of
  just printing "unsupported reloc".
o vobj-output: vasm-internal symbols must not be ignored in the output as
  relocations refering to the current-pc-symbol depend on them.

- 1.4b (14.10.09)
o Fixed IfNotDef directive in all syntax modules, which shouldn't regard an
  undefined but referenced symbol as defined.
o """" was not correctly recognized in macro arguments.
o Fixed -nocase, which also converted string constants to lower case.
o Includes Amiga version string ($VER).
o m68k: The addressing modes (d16,An) and (d8,An,Rn) will no longer be
  translated into a 32-bit displacement for 68020+, when it contains an
  undefined symbol.
o m68k: Prevent operands from being optimized or translated when the
  displacement (also outer-displacement) has a size-extension attached.
o m68k: -opt-fconst optimization was not recognized when vasmm68k is run
  on a little-endian host.
o 6502: Added all illegal opcodes and additional C64-DTV instructions. They
  can be enabled with the new -illegal and -dtv options.
o mot-syntax: Blanks in the operand field are allowed, when the new
  -spaces option is specified.
o std-syntax: .lcomm directive didn't align the data object!
o hunk-output: Option -Fhunkexe generates an executable output file.

- 1.4a (29.06.09)
o New CPU backend for Z80, 8080, GBZ80, 64180, RCM2/3/4k, named "z80",
  contributed by Dominic Morris.
o Parser allows a constant like '''' to be recognized as ' and """" as ".
o Recognize strings in data definitions with a length equal to the data
  width as a constant, which can be used in more complex operations
  (e.g. .byte "A"+1).
o Syntax modules may define a default section name, which is used when
  the programmer failed to open a section before the first code.
  Currently only the "mot" module uses it.
o Support for macro argument \0 added, which is set to the macro's first
  qualifier (mnemonic extension), when given.
o m68k: Do not optimize move.w #0,An to suba.w An,An, but to suba.l An,An.
  The old method would only clear the LSW of An!
o m68k: Fixed MOVEC and MOVE USP which ceased working since V1.4.
o m68k: pmove.q (68030/68851) was not recognized.
o m68k: bftst PC-addressing modes were not allowed.
o m68k: MACHINE mc68xxx supported for Devpac compatibility.
o m68k: Devpac3 options: OPT p=<type> to select the cpu, autopc, case,
  chkpc, debug, symtab, type, warn, xdebug.
o m68k: Some options like Devpac type checking (OPT t) were lost between
  sections.
o m68k: Supports "ASL/ASR/LSL/LSR/ROL/ROR/ROXL/ROXR Dn" for Devpac
  compatibility.
o m68k: TST.B An shouldn't be allowed.
o m68k: ColdFire TPF (same as TRAPF).
o m68k: cmp.w/l <ea>,An for ColdFire ISA-B was missing.
o oldstyle-syntax: New directives (mostly from std) for Z80 and z80asm
  compatibility: section, binary, defs, defp, defl, defc, xdef, xref,
  lib, xlib, global, extern, local, weak, ascii, asciiz, string.
o oldstyle-syntax: INCBIN has to search the same include paths as INCLUDE
  does.
o mot-syntax: Blanks in the operand field are no longer allowed (major
  modification!). This has the advantage to regard everything separated
  by the operand field with a blank as comment.
o mot-syntax: -devpac option automatically aligns all word- and long-sized
  data.
o mot-syntax: INCDIR allows multiple include paths, separated by comma.
o mot-syntax: INCBIN has to search the same include paths as INCLUDE does.
o mot-syntax: New directive: OUTPUT (Devpac), LIST, NOLIST, PLEN.
o std-syntax: .incbin directive.
o hunk-output: 8- and 16-bit absolute relocations are supported.

- 1.4 (31.05.09)
o Improved expression evaluation. More complex differences between labels
  are allowed, e.g. (lab1+x)-(lab2-y) instead of just lab1-lab2.
o Modified CPU options (cpu type, optimization setttings, etc.) were lost
  when the source switches between different sections. Make sure to
  remember previous option settings when continuing with another section.
o Error output module avoids printing the same error several times for the
  same source line (which happens due to multiple assembler passes).
o m68k: Improved ColdFire support. All known ColdFire models are recognized
  with their individual instruction set. Scale factor 8 is not allowed,
  neither is .W for index registers.
o m68k: Implemented ColdFire ISA_A+/ISA_B/ISA_C and FPU instructions.
  MOVEC understands all ColdFire registers.
o m68k: Implemented ColdFire MAC and EMAC instructions (with their strange
  syntax). vasm uses a separate operand for the scale factor << or >>,
  like GNU-as does, which seems to be prefered also by Freescale in their
  MAC example sources.
o m68k: MOVE.L #x,<ea> is optimized into MOV3Q #x,<ea> for ColdFire
  ISA_B and ISA_C, when x is -1 or between 1 and 7.
o m68k: AND/EOR/OR #x,SR are accepted (additionally to ANDI/EORI/ORI).
o m68k: New option -opt-allbra. When specified the assembler will try to
  optimize all branch instructions, no matter if they have a size-extension
  or not. This option is automatically enabled in -phxass mode.
o m68k: All 68k-specific directives are case-insensitive now (near, far,
  opt, reg, fpu, machine, equr, etc.).
o m68k: New directives: basereg and endb (from AsmOne/AsmPro).
o m68k: Fixed equr and fequr directives.
o m68k: Do not optimize JMP/JSR (label,PC) in -phxass mode for compatibility.
o mot-syntax: New directive COMMENT. Usually ignores the operand, except
  when it matches "HEAD=", in which case the following expression is passed
  as TOS-flags into the TOS output module.
o mot-syntax: New directive MEXIT to leave a macro in the middle.
o mot-syntax: New directive FAIL to break assembly with a fatal error.

- 1.3d (17.01.09)
o Space objects (DCB, .space, etc.) may be used with label-differences, as
  long as both labels are known.
o The assembler ensures that a label, which is defined on the same line
  as an instruction, data or space atom, receives the same alignment
  restrictions.
o The line number of the parent source text was sometimes wrong, when the
  error occured in an included file or a macro.
o New output module for TOS executables, available via option -Ftos.
o New option -w hides all warnings.
o New option -nowarn=<n> disables a single warning.
o New option -pic (position independant code) generates an error on
  every relocation being required.
o New option -noesc makes vasm treat the escape character '\' as any
  other character.
o m68k: Largely improved parsing speed! Expensive 96-bit calculations will
  only be done for floating point expressions now. Assembly performance of
  vasmm68k is speed up by a factor between 3 and 30!
o m68k: Operands will never be optimized or translated when the base-symbol
  is still undefined.
o m68k: Fixed extended precision float in data operands.
o m68k: Improved syntax checking in operands (e.g. DC.L 1.23 is no longer
  recognized as DC.L 1).
o m68k: Fixed parsing of 020+ memory indirect addressing mode ([label],Rn).
o m68k: Translate (An) into 0(An) for MOVEP, but warn about it.
o m68k: Branches with a size extension will no longer be optimized or
  translated but keep their size, even when that leads to an error.
o m68k: No longer print an error, when the symbol of a PC-relative
  addressing mode or branch-destination is not in the same section.
  Create a relocation instead and pass the problem to the linker, who
  knows better about the requirements of the target file format.
o m68k: New option -opt-brajmp enables translation of branch instructions
  into absolute jumps, whenever the branch-destination is in a different
  section. Removed the warning when this happens.
o m68k: MOVEQ permits immediate values from 128 to 255 again, but will
  print a warning.
o m68k: label.w is only translated into label.l when it is a known
  program label. The output module will do further checks.
o m68k: Devpac-compatible OPT directive. Together with the -phxass option
  OPT will be parsed as a PhxAss-compatible OPT directive.
o m68k: Option -opt-fconst was broken since V1.2!
o m68k: New option -showopt prints all optimizations vasm is doing.
o m68k: New option -devpac sets initial options to be Devpac compatible.
o mot-syntax: DC.B directive allows to use ' in the same way as " for
  string delimiters (previously ' needed the -phxass option).
o mot-syntax: INCBIN accepts empty files without error.
o mot-syntax: Option -phxass defines the symbol _PHXASS_ (as the real
  PhxAss does).
o mot-syntax: MACRO directive always ignores the operand field, when the
  macro-name is given in the label field (Devpac-compatibility).
o oldstyle-syntax: INCBIN and MDAT accept empty files without error.
o vobj-output: Removed -nosym functionality from 1.3c again. VOBJ doesn't
  allow stripping of symbols by design (relocations depend on them).

- 1.3c (08.12.08)
o New output module a.out, available via option -Faout.
o Output module cleanup.
o Included tool "vobjdump", to view the contents (sections, symbols and
  relocations) of a VOBJ file.
o Support for weak symbols in ELF and a.out output modules.
o New option -unnamed-sections has the effect to ignore section names, so
  that sections can only be distinguished by their attributes.
o New option -ignore-mult-inc ignores a file completely, when it is
  included for the second time.
o New option -maxerrors=<n> defines the maximum number of errors to
  display before assembly is aborted.
o m68k: Addend in pc-relative relocations was always zero for branches.
o m68k: Fixed calculations with current-PC-symbol (*) in PhxAss-compatibility
  mode once again and hopefully for the last time.
o m68k: New optimization: LEA (d,Am),An is translated into a MOVEA/ADDA.L
  combination for 68000, when d doesn't fit into 16 bits.
o m68k: Fixed 8-bit relative references (EXT_RELREF8).
o mot-syntax: New directive "text" (same as code).
o mot-syntax: "section <name>" will use <name> for the section type as well,
  for compatibility reasons (e.g. Atari assemblers). In -phxass mode it will
  still start a code section named <name>. Valid section types are now:
  code, text, data and bss.
o std-syntax: New directives: weak, local.
o std-syntax: Support for local symbols of the form ".nnn", where nnn stands
  for an arbitrary number of digits.
o vobj-output: New option -nosym, to discard local symbols.
o vobj-output: Fixed bug with bss section. All sections after a bss appeared
  as corrupted.
o aout

- 1.3b (23.10.08)
o New relocations, from vlink 0.12+, to keep the VOBJ format compatible.
o PPC: Support for @local, @plt, @sectoff, @globdat attributes and their
  appropriate relocation types.

- 1.3a (05.10.08)
o Fixed a memory hole when parsing constant expressions.
o Fixed SET directives, which could contain the wrong value when
  reassigning a different label to the same symbol with SET.
o std-syntax: .ident directive is accepted but may not yet work as expected.
o m68k: Improved support for gcc-generated output. Added opcodes for
  jbeq, ..., jbvs, jbra, jbsr and movm. Fixed -elfreg to recognize %sp
  and %fp.

- 1.3 (24.09.08)
o Assembler-core supports repeat-directives. May be nested.
  So vasm is a full-featured assembler now!
o mot-syntax: Added REPT and ENDR directives.
o mot-syntax: Added LOAD and JUMPPTR as no-ops. Directives are accepted,
  but will show a warning and have no effect.
o mot-syntax: No longer automatically creates a CODE section.
o mot-syntax: Fixed debug directive to use the correct line number.
o std-syntax: Added .rept and .endr directives.
o parse_constexpr() displayed the wrong error message when the expression
  was not constant (e.g. caused by "DCB nonconstsym").
o m68k: Option -rangewarnings changes some out of range errors into warnings.
o m68k: Moved a part of the -phxass option functionality from mot-syntax
  into the CPU module: Increase the value of the current-PC-symbol by
  2 bytes for instructions which are larger than 2 bytes (yes, it's sick,
  but PhxAss did it this way).
o m68k: Out of range error (1026) also works for signed immediate values
  now (e.g. MOVEQ).
o 6502: Generate correct relocations for hi/lo-byte modifiers ('<', '>').
o 6502: '<' and '>' are real unary operators now and can be used in
  complex expressions.
o oldstyle-syntax: macro, endm, rept, endr, include, incdir and incbin
  (mdat) directives.
o oldstyle-syntax: conditional assembly. Directives: if, ifdef, ifndef,
  ifeq, ifne, ifgt, ifge, iflt, ifle, else, elseif, endif, endc, el, ei.
o oldstyle-syntax: Added rept and endr directives.
o oldstyle-syntax: "n#" is allowed as a constant prefix, where n defines
  an arbitrary base between 2 and 9.
o oldstyle-syntax: Local label of the form "n$" are supported.
o bin-output: support for multiple org-sections. Gaps are filled with zeros.
  Overlapping sections are detected and refused.
o bin-output: option -cbm-prg writes a Commodore PRG header (two bytes for
  load-address) in front of the output file.
o bin-output: undefined symbols are not allowed.
o listing file support (oil).
o oil: Lots of changes and enhancements.

- 1.2c (24.08.07)
o Defining initialized data in an uninitialized bss-type section
  causes a warning for each line.
o It is no longer allowed to terminate your data definition with a ','.
  This means that another data item must follow!
o m68k: -no-opt should not disable operand-transformations which are
  required to make a displacement fit into an operand. This bug made
  ($1234,a0,d0) fail for "-m68020 -no-opt", because the operand was
  not transformed into a 020 extended adressing mode anymore.
o Included support for Win32/MSVC++ compiler by Mikael Kalms.
o Fixed conversion for absolute paths and multiple "./" in a path.

- 1.2b (07.06.07)
o Option -x causes an error message, when an undefined symbol is referenced.
  This is especially helpful when generating binary-output, where there is
  no linker-support for missing symbols.
o For compatibility '//' is also recognized as a modulo operator besides '%'.
o m68k: btst instruction didn't work with immediate or PC-relative
  addressing modes.
o m68k: New option -m68020up, to make vasm accept all instructions of
  68020, 68030, 68040 and 68060 (note that PFLUSHA is dangerous!).
o ARM: Create mapping symbols ($a, $t, $d) as required by ARM ELF ABI.
o ARM: New option -thumb puts the backend into Thumb-mode at the beginning
  of the source (no .thumb directive required).
o ARM: Fixed ARM instructions MCR, MRC and Thumb instruction MOV.
o ARM: Switching between Thumb and ARM mode with .arm and .thumb directives
  didn't really work. Fixed.
o ARM: [Rn,#-<expr>] and #-<expr> was not recognized.
o 6502: Allow -128 to -1 too for 8-bit values.
o elf-output: use .rel sections instead of .rela for ARM-relocations, to
  make linking with GNU-tools easier.
o C16x: Several bug fixes.
o mot-syntax: Colon (:) is always allowed behind labels, even with EQU.
o mot-syntax: org directive.
o std-syntax: org directive.

- 1.2a (25.09.06)
o Fixed a bug when reading CR/LF-sources on a MsDos/Windows/Atari system.
o There is no cpu-dependant default section alignment anymore. All sections
  start with an alignment of 1, which is increased when required. This
  fixes problems with DWARF sections!
o mot-syntax: =,  set, equ, rs, so, fo now work with local labels too.
o PPC: Supports 64-bit data (e.g. .quad directive).
o x86: Prevent forever oscillating optimizations for jmp-instructions
  in conjunction with an alignment directive.
o m68k: New option -conv-brackets converts brackets ('[' and ']') in an
  operand into parentheses ('(' and ')') as long as the CPU is 68000
  or 68010. This is a compatibility option for some old assemblers.
o m68k: cmp and tst must not be optimized to PC-relative for 68000/010.
o m68k: cmp #n,d(PC) (020+) miscalculated the offset two bytes too far.
o m68k: fpu directive may be used without argument (default id is 1).
o m68k: Added missing FPU instructions frestore and fsave.
o ARM: Fixed a bug with immediate operands, which could not be represented
  as a simple rotated value.
o ARM: Coprocessor-Id symbols p0-p15 and register symbols c0-c15.

- 1.2 (05.06.06)
o First test version of a new backend: 80x86/IA32 (named "x86").
o Internal improvements of the instruction parser.
o Empty input files are no longer rejected.
o Redefined labels no longer cause an infinite loop of the assembler.
o Assembler core supports local symbols (identifying them is syntax-module
  dependant). Currently the only syntax module supporting local symbols
  is "mot" ("name$" and ".name" style).
o Assembler core supports include files.
o Assembler core supports macros.
o Option -D allows to define symbols from the command line.
o Option -I defines include paths, which are searched in the order of
  occurence on the command line.
o Instructions are case-insensitive.
o Memory optimizations. Free more data that is used only temporary.
o Detailed error messages also show the file names and the names and lines
  where the failed source is called from.
o PPC: References to small-data offsets > 32767 no longer produce an
  'out of range' error.
o m68k: References to small-data offsets > 32767 no longer produce an
  'out of range' error.
o m68k: Instructions without size-suffix get a default suffix assigned.
  Current the 64-bit instructions (Sledgehammer) are disabled.
o m68k: Fixed bug with optimizing of "suba.w #32768,An".
o m68k: Float constants were only recognized when including a decimal
  point. Now it depends on FPU addressing mode and opcode extension.
  Extensions 's','d','x' and 'p' will allways expect a floating point
  constant, when the radix is 10 (i.e. no base-prefix given).
o m68k: Fixed operand parser, which had problems with expressions in
  parentheses, like: "-(expression)" and "(expression1)+expression2(An...)".
o mot-syntax: macro, endm, include and incdir directives.
o mot-syntax: conditional assembly. Directives: if, ifc, ifnc, ifd, ifnd,
  ifeq, ifne, ifgt, ifge, iflt, ifle, else, elseif, endif, endc.
o mot-syntax: directives are case-insensitive.
o mot-syntax: -phxass option extended to ignore operands on some directives,
  to allow using ' around strings, etc.
o mot-syntax: xdef,xref,public allow multiple symbols.
o mot-syntax: incbin directive, to insert binary files.
o mot-syntax: structure- and frame-offset directives: rsreset, rsset, rs,
  clrso, setso, so, clrfo, setfo, fo.
o mot-syntax: blk.w/blk.l were not correctly working, because vasm core
  only supported a single byte fill value. Extended it to up to 8 bytes!
o mot-syntax: section directive accepts "_c", "_f" and "_p" as an extension
  to the section-type, identifying sections to be loaded to Chip- or Fast-
  RAM. The third memory-type argument is illegal in this case.
o std-syntax: .p2align
o std-syntax: behaviour of .align is cpu-depandant. Aligns to n bytes for
  x86 and to a power of 2 for most other CPUs.
o std-syntax: .macro and .endm, .include and .incdir directives.
o std-syntax: conditional assembly. Directives: .if, .ifdef, .ifndef,
  .ifeq, .ifne, .ifgt, .ifge, .iflt, .ifle, .else, .endif.
o elf-output: .note sections are supported. Any section which starts
  with ".note" gets the section type SHT_NOTE.
o elf-output: Option -nosym strips all local symbols from the output file.
o hunk-output: Section attributes 'C' and 'F' are recognized and converted
  into the approriate CHIP and FAST memory flag in the hunk-type.

- 1.1e (26.06.05)
o Parser could not handle a comment-character in the operand field for
  mnemonics without any operand.
o PPC: Included MorphOS-DREL (@drel) and OS4-BREL (@brel) relocation types.
o m68k: Operands like ([d,An]) erroneously got the PostIndex-flag set
  in the format-word, which made the instruction illegal for a 68020+ CPU.

- 1.1d (05.03.05)
o Hunk/EHF output module accessed already deallocated memory for
  external references. Fixed.
o std-syntax: .balign directives, aligns to an address dididable by
  the specified value.
o std-syntax: .stabs, .stabn and .stabd directives for stab debugging
  support. Currently only the ELF output module can be used with stabs.
o std-syntax: Fixed .space directive which ignored the fill-value.
o std-syntax: PPC symbols are allowed to contain the '$' character.
o PPC: Fixed a crash when a register-indirect addressing mode was not
  correctly recognized, e.g. in "symbol@l+0(r3)".
o m68k: Modified floating point conversion algorithm to improve precision.
o m68k: No longer optimize (label,An) to (label.l,An) (basedispl. mode)
  when An is the small data base register.
o c16x: Fixed memory bug in .sfr parsing.

- 1.1c (18.12.04)
o m68k: New option -opt-fconst allows converting of floating point
  constants to a smaller size, as long as no precision is lost.
o m68k: Implemented missing conversion of floating point constants
  to extended precision.
o -Fhunk option allows multiple sections with the same name now, as
  long as their attributes differ.
o Supports PPCEABI_SDA2 relocs in EHF output format, which is
  generated when assembling WarpOS-ABI sources.
o Improved error message output for AmigaOS, which doesn't really
  differentiate between stdout and stderr.