>> DEC syntax for this would be "MOVAL 0xff, @0x10000000".
> Nitpick:  it's been a while, but IIRC doesn't MACRO-32 use ^X not 0x
> right?

Someone else wrote me off-list pointing out that 0x was wrong,
uncertainly suggesting %X.  Yes, I forgot about the base notation when
concentrating on the indirect and literal notation.  (Of the two, ^X
looks more likely to me; I do clearly remember ^B, ^S, ^W, etc, for
specifying various sizes.)

>> DEC uses @ and #, but Unices have traditionally used * and $.
> Isn't there some crazy explanation for this, involving @ and # being
> used as editing keys in extremely early Unix TTY drivers,

Ah yes, @ was line kill and # was erase, I think.  (Indeed, they were
the default erase and kill characters as late as at least 4.1c, which
was the first BSD I used, and possibly later.)

> so we're stuck with this weird syntax forever in all architectures,
> just to support ancient terminals with no CTRL key (like what?!  even
> the ASR33 could send all the usual codes).

I can't address the original choice of @ and #.  But what's wrong with
* and $?  They're inconsistent with DEC assemblers, but I can't really
see that as a catastrophe; we're inconsistent with vendor software in
lots of lots more important ways, and that one is easy to patch up
mechanically; I don't really see it as a big deal.

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