an editor, assembler, debugger and a whole boxful of other tools
Edit by : That makes me either a pioneer or a Crank. In my worst moments I imagine myself as that old geezer I used to see sprinting his bicycle down the long asphalt paths of one of Londons extensive parks, dressed in what looked like a WW1 trench-coat and flying- goggles. His intentions became clear once you were able to tear your eyes away from his antiquated outfit and noticed the wooden Blades rotating just above his head, driven by a Byzantine plexus of Chains and pulleys, and making a noise like a Flock of pigeons fighting over a discarded sandwich. He was unchallenged in his field too.

Obviously you have to worry when no one copies your design. But my helicopter does at least take off, and is therefore low-level in a completely different sense from his. But launching myself into an eloquent justification of the interpreter is not something Im going to do here, because Ketman makes its own case by immediate demonstration. Once youve seen it working youll know why its a good idea.

This will be the last major upgrade of the real-mode-only Ketman. The next version might be itself a Windows program, or it might not, but it will in any case provide a platform for writing Windows programs, or programs that employ the protected-mode instruction set.

In the meantime, Ketman has a new title, though to preserve Continuity I have stuck to the existing number sequence, numbering the opening version as 3.0, the latest (January 2003) being 3.6. Strictly speaking, the new title, Maximaster might not be an amalgamation of the titles taken by previous versions, Schoolmaster and Codemaster, but it is supposed to imply a convergence of their functions. There is still an extensive programming tutorial for starter programmers - more than 20,000 words - but this time it is kept quite separate from the tutorials on the tool-kit, and is a separate download. Generally, the tutorials are more rationally organized than before, and make for easier referencing. you can free download Ketman Maximaster 3.6 now.