The Hutch-- Case ..
Steve Hutchesson's ''glory and claim to fame'' ;) is with having ''legally stolen'' Microsoft's MASM, and then redistributing it under the name of MASM32, by playing the opportunistic loophole game with a legal failure of the MASM Licence (EULA).
Because of this bad joke , he is considered an important individual in the Assembly Rebirth by a lot of ''Assembly Programmers'', MASM users, of course, who are, alas, up to now, the ''Mainstream of Assembly''.
One of his greatest actions was to have contributed, a little bit, to ''kick TASM out'' -his own words-, by helping Iczelion with the collecting of some Win32 Equates for MASM. For the older Programmers who may remember this, TASM was, at that time, a much better Product than MASM, and many of the earlier Pioneers of the Assembly Rebirth were TASM users. As these pioneers had expertise levels way over Hutch's , Hutch now declares publicly, each time he can, that TASM was a Tool for producing... Viruses (!!!...). Well, ...
He is a Power Basic Programmer making occasional use of Assembly Routines for enhancing his PB Applications. It appears he wrote one Assembly ''Application''. You may see it in the MASM32 Package: TheGun.exe. (no Source available, of course... you have to believe his words... though I am sure he was able to write it).
Basically, TheGun is an Edit Control with a Menu, performing (with some minor errors) the basic operations, that you may find in any User Demo for a Text Control, at best. This seems to be the only thing Hutch ever wrote in full Assembly.
As said in The_Randall_Hyde_Case , Hutch and Randall made their 'junction' after the oncoming of HLA, in 2003. I first did not understand how this was possible, and I was a bit surprised when I saw him dancing cheek to cheek with a Hyde. So, I asked him, and his answer indicated to me that, in his opinion, HLA had not any chance of success, and so, was not a danger for Assembly.
I later understood that he made this junction only for having a ''famous'' person beside him, who then rewarded him with the public recognition he sought: The recriprocal recognition of Randall Hyde as an important ''Assembler Author'... and, as you may guess, of Hutch, by Randall Hyde, as the great Pioneer of the Assembly Rebirth. This was really pathetic.
Same conclusion as for The_Randall_Hyde_Case: This is necessary to fix these unpleasant and ridiculous facts, now -July 2003-, and to remember to never more let these individuals play the great masters, teachers, and experts by dancing for free on others works, when the Assembly Rebirth will be achieved.
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Some of Hutch's Posts
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From: hutch@movsd.com (hutch--)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.asm
Subject: Re: Betov, Betov, wherefore art thou Betov.
Randy,
I am much of the same view, what I pay for is mine and I am not beholding to anyone for what and where I use the software. I own both MASM 6.00 from 1990 and the current version of MASM and have both sets of manuals for the privilege. I also own the version of PowerBASIC I regularly use for high level code and between MASM and PB I can do most of what I want in Windows.
My last version of Visual C lies somewhere on its distribution CD as I don't need it and my version of TASM has not been installed for about 5 years but at least I can set them up any old time and I am not beholding to anyone with what I do with them, no tacky GPL licence, any code I write is my own to share, sell, give away or distribute any way I like.
This where an old fool like Betov fails to comprehend what freedom is about, his notion of freedom is bondage to GPL, the Betov level of comprehension of assembler, coding in general and the legal considerations of licencing agreements.
I actually have no beef with GPL until someone tries to inflict it on me by weight of moral imperative as I don't see that anyone has any rights at all to what I write. The other factor is a lot of the code I write I don't want to support and some of it is so obscure and badly written that the world at large deserves to be protected from it.
I fully agree with your view that it is a waste of time trying to use junk tools that don't have the power to do what you want. While I never minded helping out guys who were developing new tools, the idea that I am in some sense bound to the limitations of crappy software is never going to get off the ground.
Regards,
hutch at movsd dot com
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The assembler rebirth will never happen, MASM resurrected assembler on the x86 platform a long time ago with the help of many different people who already had the experience in MASM and together they have restored it to its original place as a high performance tool free of the associations with badly designed and written code of the past.
The idea of 'rebirth' in the form that Betov dreams of it is a fantasy that will never happen because assembler with MASM is just too powerful and too useful to too many people.
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Regards,
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(gerry, asking why MASM32 is released for free). Hutch answer:
It could be for many reasons but one of the leading ones is that Microsoft would prefer that you used one of their tools for Windows than shift to linux because you cannot affort to buy Microsoft tools.
I imagine their core business has very little to do with who is buying assemblers and not even that much to do with development tools but rather the sales of OS versions and applications like Office which have mass appeal and corporate and Government buyers.
At a pragmatic level, if you need to write performance code in Windows, a free assembler like MASM is a good choice and I am sure this is why Microsoft have made it available since about 1996 at no cost for hardware and similar people who need to do this type of work.
Differing from GPL software, you have a Microsoft EULA to use it and write whatever you like with it and sell it without having to give your code away if you don't want to.
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From: hutch@movsd.com (hutch--)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.asm
Subject: Re: when to use proc
The asumption that is common through this thread is the idea that beginners need to start on the lowest level possible to learn assembler. This piece of popular folklore is probably the greatest single reason why so many people did not persevere with learning assembler after being fed bullshit like this.
This much I have learned from thousands of learners on IRC and later in assembler forums is that being able to get something up and going first is a LOT more important than understanding segment arithmetic and being able to use at least some high level constructions greatly simplifies the task. What generally happens is that after the learner can reliably get a program up and going they tend to learn the lower level stuff later at a gradual level.
There has been a lot of HOO HAH in the past about uasing .IF syntax or prebuilt LOOP syntax in the large professional assemblers but everyone and their dog already knows that you only use this stuff for hack code like WndProc procedures where you have a long and large tree sructures for message processing that is not even vaguely speed critical.
I know rationale is lost on an old fool like Betov who has to try and cover up the many inadequacies of his work with a barrage of bullsh*t but for people who actually want to WRITE assembler rather than be in a position of ever learning it need and want high level style consructions to get their code up and running fast.
It is the people who SUCCEED in getting assembler programs up and running that come back later with highly optimised hand written assembler procedures, not the ones struggling to make the minimum sense out of a crap heap like BetovAsm that still does not handle structures properly, cannot build libraries, cannot handle large assembler files without crashing, cannot produce convenient high level constructions, the list goes on and on and Betov will not do the basic work necessary to fix it. He just keeps flogging the same barrage of bullsh*t to try and cover it up.
Programmers who are interested in actually writing assembler are well served by using the large professional ones that can do it all rather than a crippled concept like BetovAsm that is a subset of Betov's very limited knowledge of software engineering and coding capacity. Why should a young person waste their life and time with a pile of crap that does not perform when they can spend it learning a professioal tool and get software up and running far faster than with a disaster like BetovAsm ?
Performance is yet another area that Betov is not willing to try and compete in. In terms of size, power and code speed, MASM is very hard to beat and the proof is in the 1.5k working window in the MASM32 example code. The equivalent under 32 bit TASM was 8k. Can Betov's disaster improve on the 1.5k working window ?
When a younger programmer comes to assembler, they don't need to be fed bullsh*t about the purity of Betov's crackpot political theory and how they should waste their life and time using something that is supposed to prop up this nonsense, they need REAL industrial programming power to get the job done complete with decent documentation and example code.
Regards,
hutch at movsd dot com
www.masm32.com <<< Get a real 32 bit assembler here for FREE :)
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jayte,
Never write yourself off, its not the posturing of an old fool like Betov that matters but the work you do and where you point it. Put things together over time and make it work properly and you will make a useful contribution that people can use and profit from.
All of the successful programmers I have ever known have been good workers and its here where it matters, not in the posturing that you hear from time to time from a few who don't do the work. Usually the more noise you hear, the less talent there is behind it but most people see through it and eventually take no notice.
Just make sure you put your talent and hard work where it will not be wasted.
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From: hutch@movsd.com (hutch--)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.asm
Subject: Re: Betov, Betov, wherefore art thou Betov.
Muhahahaha,
Same old rant again, Betov cannot properly speak or understand English so the legal implications of him stealing someone elses software don't matter ?
Like it or not, MASM and MASM32 users are protected by a Microsoft EULA where BetovAsm users are at risk because the software they get from Betov was illegally produced in stolen software and illegally distributed as well.
We all know the value of the 'Betov Rating System' having seen how experienced Betov is when he cannot write MASM, NASM, C, Basic or any of the other languages he claims to be able to compare his product to. I can only wonder where this knowledge comes from, immaculate conception, A Priori at birth ?
Any programmer who is trying to use BetovAsm would be well advised to try another fully legal freeware assembler, apart from MASM they can get NASM, FASM and GoAsm, all of which are far better assemblers than BetovAsm and you can do what you like with what you write with them.
Now with the personal attacks on people like Randy Hyde, it would be about as obvious as TITZ on a bull that Betov is envious of the reputation and experience that Randy has. From at least 1996 Randy has had substantial work on the internet that a generation of assembler programmers have grown up with and the respect and reputation that he has for doing so much work is well deserved.
Now while Betov may like to try and target me personally over the massive user base that MASM has, what he is in fact doing is attacking the freedom of choice that programmers have made because they did not bow to the great highly self acclaimed assembler guru in Betov. One can only imagine the sheer audacity of that more than a half a million people who have downloaded the MASM32 package without reference to BetovAsm, its author and its half a dozen users.
Come on Betov, when will you come clean, you have been caught with your pants down lying like a pig in sh*t feeding a mountain of bullsh*t to anyone unfortunate enough to read assembler forums and newsgroups.
Now there is the matter of supporting the Windows operating system while claiming to be a GPL guru as well. Everyone knows that LINUX is the GPL operating system but instead of supporting LINUX like so many GPL minded people do, Betov continues to support Microsoft architecture. Now everyone and their dog knows that ReactOS will never get off the ground and if it did, it would be trashed by Microsoft for copyright violations.
Betov may be smug enough to think he can pull off the same cheap and dirty con with this continual barrage of bullsh*t but what he has done is well known and no junky sales pitch will fix it up. Illegal software passed off under a GPL licence while supporting Microsoft architecture in Windows.
Regards,
hutch at movsd dot com
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MASM Forum:
hutch--
Site Admin
Joined: 09 May 2003
Posts: 909
Location: Sydney Australia
Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 10:39 am Post subject:
It does not matter how hard Betov tries to wriggle, his own documentation says he used a STOLEN copy of software that he was too lousy to register and built BetovAsm with it. As it is licenced at an evaluation level for personal use only, ANY distribution from it is illegal and any derivation from it is illegal.
It is humerous that Betov would try and use a term like 'decency' when he has bullsh*tted his way to his highly self acclaimed position as a leading assembler guru by repeatedly attacking people who have never done him any harm and who in the past even tried to help him. Attaching BetovAsm like a parasite to the work of other people is by no means 'decent' but another dishonest method that betov uses to try and advance his highly self acclaimed status.
Come on Betov, when are you going to come clean and admit you are a thief who stole commercial software so you could build BetovAsm and pretend you are supporting GPL while your work only supports Windows. When will you delete that pile of crap and build a decent assembler that is later in design than the 1970s garbage you currently produce.
When will BetovAsm support LINUX, the GPL operating system, not the Microsoft architecture it currently supports ?
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Regards,
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From: hutch@movsd.com (hutch--)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.asm
Subject: Re: Evolution
What a highly self acclaimed leading assembler guru like Betov has revealed in this posting is his ignorance of what he is trying to compete against in HLLs and the existing set of skills that many programmers already have.
MASM already can compete with a C compiler as it emulates C very well and this has been shown in the MASM32 user base where a very large number of C programmers have MASM as an option for doing a range of program types that it is better suited to do.
While I agree with Randy that the macro system in MASM is a bit long in the tooth, it is easily powerful enough to do a number of different language emulations as in fact he has already done so in emulating pascal in assembler.
While many may not admit it, most have a background in basic at some stage of their development career and rather than throw away an existing skill, emulating some of the string handling capacity of basic while generating good quality code in pure assembler allows a programmer to leverage an existing skill and save on the learning curve required to get many of these tasks up and running.
This below is pure MASM, I wonder how the highly self acclaimed leading guru of the assembler market emulates this code in BetovAsm ?
mov str1, trim$(lcase$(right$(str1,eax)))
Any basic programmer already knows how this code works and they don't have to recreate the wheel to get it going. If and when they have reason to when using MASM, they can write their own libraries and macros and do even better. This is the difference between a professional level industrial strength assembler like MASM and what Betov is trying to pass off as a 'true' assembler, put simply MASM is powerful enough to emulate other languages where BetovAsm is struggling to emulate an assembler.
PS: Doc,
I just could not resist the temptation in the face of someone like Betov who is such a generous giver of criticism yet such a lousy receiver of criticism from others. It helps to make him 'umble. :)
hutch at movsd dot com
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Its always been fair to compliment someone on what they do well and Betov raises the issue of what a good assembler is and what it is not on such a regular basis that he has contributed to a wider understanding of an assembler as powerful as MASM.
While very few are pursuaded to waste their life and time on the current incarnation of BetovAsm, it is in fact useful to people who are investigating modern assembler to know what the alternatives are and this protects them from concepts as poor as BetovAsm.
In the same spirit of Betov actively supporting Microsoft Operating Systems with what used to be his 'specific' assembler, his support for the flagship Microsoft assembler MASM is repeatedly shown when he repeatedly raises comparison issues that show how powerful MASM is in comparison to his own badly implemented ideas.
The mechanism works in much the same way as his shift to attacking HLA and Randy Hyde in particular. It gives Randy a chance to promote his new ideas and it allows people who are interested in learning assembler a chance to understand a well thought out idea like HLA from one of the well respected assembler authors and programmers of our time.
Now while we will continue to hear the whinging and catscratching from Betov, the opportunity to advance far more powerful tools like MASM and HLA will continue to be done in contrast to a toothless terror like BetovAsm.
Good work there Betov.
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