Recent Questions - Retrocomputing Stack Exchange · Aug 4, 2026

Can I output the current location at assembly time, something like DISPLAY $?

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I have Borland Turbo Assembler 3.1 (TASM) on MS-DOS and would like to display the current location ( $ ) during assembly time. Something like this: IF ($ - boot_jump) NE 3 DISPLAY "BOOTSECT.ASM: BPB started at wrong offset: Was $ not 3" .ERR ENDIF This doesn't work though, it displays a literal $ sign. I couldn't find a user manual for TASM 3.1, but neither the TASM 4 nor 5 manuals show any kind…

I have Borland Turbo Assembler 3.1 (TASM) on MS-DOS and would like to display the current location ($) during assembly time. Something like this:

IF ($ - boot_jump) NE 3
    DISPLAY "BOOTSECT.ASM: BPB started at wrong offset: Was $ not 3"
    .ERR
ENDIF

This doesn't work though, it displays a literal $ sign. I couldn't find a user manual for TASM 3.1, but neither the TASM 4 nor 5 manuals show any kind of string interpolation for DISPLAY or %OUT.

Is there a way to do that at assembly time? (Not at runtime for the code!)

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