I would like to second Eddy Balem's plug of Harold Grovesteen's most excellent SATK/ASMA product:
*
As Harold already knows, I'm his biggest fan. It's a *very* nice, well written product that allows you quickly and easily write stand alone programs in an assembler that is virtually identical to IBM's (there are some differences but they're minor IMO), and, as Ed said, produces output that is usable on virtually any/all IBM operating systems in existence (including, I might add, not just legacy ones like VM/370, DOS/VS, etc, but also modern ones too like z/OS and z/VM).
I use it all the time to write test cases for Hercules. Just take a look at Hercules's "test" subdirectory and you'll see.
If anyone is interested in playing around with or learning mainframe assembler without the hassle of needing an operating system to do so, I would *highly recommend* that you give it a try! Harold and/or myself will gladly provide you with whatever help you might need to get started with it.
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"Fish" (David B. Trout)
Software Development Laboratories
mail: fish@...
