Since few weeks, I have been studying Assembly Language Programming, today I installed all the necessary applications to compile an assembly program.
I install DOSBox 0.74, NASM (Assembler), and AFD (Debugger). I mount the drive and see my .asm files correctly. But when I execute the following command:
nasm firstprogram.asm -o firstprogram.com
it gives me the following error: This program cannot be run in dos mode
But when I compile the file through command prompt (cmd) it compiles corrrectly and then I have to go to DOSBox to run AFD and debug the .com file.
Any idea why am I getting this error on DOSBox?
You're receiving this error message because you're attempting to run the Windows version of the nasm binary on a virtual MS-DOS platform. This isn't supported. Instead, you should download and use the MS-DOS nasm binary.
Explanation: When you see the details of the Portable Executable Format (the internal format of .exe, .dll, and some .com files), you'll come across the MS-DOS stub header. This header's primary function is to display the message "This program cannot be run in DOS mode" when executed on 16-bit real mode operating systems like MS-DOS. This message serves as a warning to the user that the program they're trying to run is incompatible with their current system.