If you look up the definition of mnemonic, you'll see that it's a memory aid. The text for an instruction consists of one or more mnemonics in most assemblers. The symbolic name we give to a memory location (so we don't have to remember the address) is a mnemonic, as is the text we use to represent the operation. Unfortunately, the opcode field alone doesn't always fully describe the entire instruction.

I don't think there's a point to an argument of any sort here.

The context, however, was opcode vs. instruction. In most assemblers, at least those I've used since the '60's, there's an opcode field, one or more fields of arguments. Those in combination, comprise the instruction. I don't care what anyone calls them, but, if he expects me to understand what he means, he needs to use fairly well-defined and unabiguous terms.

It's not clear whether Mike wants to write his own assembler because he really doesn't know what an assembler (particularly a macro-assembler) does. However, I think it would be advisable that he examine a few of them, and also the various available simulators that share the same syntax, so he can see what's out there before he reinvents the wheel.

It's probably a waste of time trying to persuade Mike to use standard tools with which he can get "standard" answers. He'd rather make the job as difficult as possible. It's his choice.

RE