32bit asm makes me die inside.

[Goalatio]

I wrote an operating system in 16bit asm (NASM), and thought it was easy. Then I came up with the crazy idea that I could learn 32bit asm.. And quickly became disgusted.

All of the 32bit tutorials out there TELL you to use C or a similar language; I want nothing to do with C at all. AT ALL. I honestly would much rather code all of the functions myself, no interrupts, no C.. just the friendly asm syntax.

So my first idea was to print a string to the screen. Simple, right? Wrong.
In 16bit, you can easily do it by writing directly to 0xB800 or A000..

(Code taken from my OS..)

msg1 db "Hello, world!",0
%macro prints 2
	mov ah,%1
	mov si,%2
	call printstr
%endmacro
prints 0x0C,msg1
Other stuff here.. etc etc

;---- Not executed except by calls
print_textbuffer:
	mov byte[@display],2	;Text buffer mode
	jmp print
printstr:
	mov byte[@display],1	;String mode
print:
	push es
	push ax
	mov ax,0xB800
	mov es,ax
	xor bx,bx
	call calculate_line
	pop ax
	cmp byte[@display],1
		je .string
	cmp byte[@display],2
		je .buffer
	mov word[counter],cx
	.write:
		mov word[es:bx],ax
		dec word[counter]
		jz .done
		add bx,2		;*2 for word value
		jmp .write
	.string:		;Displays string in SI terminated by 0
		lodsb
		test al,al
		jz .done
		mov word[es:bx],ax
		add bx,2
		jmp .string
	.buffer:
		mov byte[counter],0x00
		.buffer_loop:
			lodsb
			cmp al,'$'
			je .buffer_nextline
			test al,al
			jz .done
			mov word[es:bx],ax
			add bx,2
			inc word[counter2]
			inc byte[counter]
			jmp .buffer_loop
		.buffer_nextline:
			xor dx,dx
			mov dl,[counter]
			sub bx,dx
			sub bx,dx
			add bx,160	;Add one line
			mov byte[counter],0x00	;Reset counter
			jmp .buffer_loop
	.done:
	mov byte[@display],0
	pop es
	ret
	
calculate_line:		;Converts X and Y position counters into a value to be written to memory
	cmp byte[cursor_y],0x00	;First line?
		je .done			;If so, only apply the X position
	mov dl,[cursor_y]
	mov byte[counter],dl
	.loop:
		cmp byte[counter],0x00
			je .done
		add bx,160	;*2 for word value
		dec byte[counter]
		jmp .loop
	.done:
	mov al,[cursor_x]
	xor ah,ah
	add bx,ax
	add bx,ax	;*2 for word value
	ret

And in 32bit, from what I read, you are supposed to push the string, then call some sickly C function called printf.

msg1 db "Message!%s"
lea eax,msg1
push eax
call dword ptr printf

Is there REALLY no other way to do it? Do I HAVE to use C?

Sorry for such a long post, just a bit annoyed that there are no 'real' tutorials out there for 32bit. Thanks for reading..

[nezachem]

> All of the 32bit tutorials

Looks like you missed this, which accidentally comes first on a protected mode screen access google search.

[Goalatio]

> All of the 32bit tutorials

Looks like you missed this, which accidentally comes first on a protected mode screen access google search.

I feel dumb now. Never thought to search that, I was searching "32bit asm textmode address" etc.
Thanks