Good question. It assembles without a whimper for me. What command line are you feeding Nasm?
The "phase error" message is intended to be generated if you give too small a number to the "-O" switch, and Nasm can't complete optimization in the specified maximum number of passes. At one time, "-O2" gave five passes, and -"O3" gave ten passes (or 10 and 15, maybe...), but the "special case" code has been removed, and now "-O2" (and greater) give just the specified number of passes. 2 or 3 are *not* enough for any but the simplest code - use a good big number - I like "-O999" - this is the *maximum* number of passes Nasm will make, so you won't slow things down by using too big a number. Too small will fail with that error message.
That message is *also* generated as a "bonus error message" if there's an undefined symbol... perhaps other errors would cause it... This isn't really intended...
Neither of these seem to be the case with your code. Even "-O2" is enough to assemble this code, and there don't seem to be any undefined symbols... I haven't actually tested it (not in dos at the moment), but it assembles fine for me, and looks correct. So... what command line? Any other error messages besides "phase error"?
Stumped,
Frank
