| Paradigms | non-structured, imperative |
|---|---|
| Family | assembly language |
| Developer | Digital Equipment Corporation |
| First appeared | 1977 |
| Typing discipline | Untyped |
| Scope | Lexical |
| Implementation language | assembly language |
| Platform | VAX |
| OS | VMS |
| Influenced by | |
| MACRO-11 | |
| Influenced | |
| MACRO-64 | |
VAX MACRO is the computer assembly language implementing the VAX instruction set architecture for the OpenVMS operating system, originally released by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1977.
The syntax, directives, macro language, and lexical substitution operators of VAX MACRO formerly appeared in MACRO-11, the assembler for the PDP-11 series of computers. The MACRO-32 assembler supported the VAX processors developed and manufactured by DEC. It ran under the VMS operating system and produced object files suitable for the VMS linker. The MACRO-32 assembler and linker were bundled with the operating system.
To port VMS to the DEC Alpha, VAX MACRO was implemented for the Alpha architecture. Since the Alpha used a different instruction set than the VAX, MACRO-32 was implemented as a compiler, compiling VAX assembly language into Alpha instructions.[1]
The Alpha AXP chips have their own native instruction set architecture, the OpenVMS assembler for Alpha assembly code is named MACRO-64.[2]
A MACRO-32 compiler is also available for the Intel Itanium architecture,[3] and for x86-64.[4]
- ^ Kronenberg, Nancy P.; Benson, Thomas R.; Cardoza, Wayne M.; Jagannathan, Ravindran; Thomas, Benjamin J. III (1992). "Porting OpenVMS from VAX to Alpha AXP" (PDF). Digital Technical Journal. 4 (4).
- ^ "VSI OpenVMS Programming Concepts Manual" (PDF). VMS Software Inc. April 2020. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
- ^ HP OpenVMS ask the wizard – Macro32 Assemblers and Compilers? OpenVMS I64?
- ^ "State of the Port to x86" (PDF). VMS Software Inc. March 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-10-29.