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Retrocomputing

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    IBM has had rather a number of systems over the years. Which one(s) do you mean? Commented Apr 16, 2021 at 22:50
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    I don't believe that to be true for Macro-10, Macro-11, or Macro-32. The latter two had 'local labels' of the form nn$, where the 'nn' part had to be unique in the range between any two ordinary labels.. There was no 'f' and 'b' suffix on the reference to the label (no need). The forward-and-back convention was for the Unix PDP-11 assembler. A glance at an arbitrary online copy of the Macro-32 manual confirms my view for VAX. Commented Apr 16, 2021 at 22:52
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    @JerryCoffin The earliest for which the question can be answered in the positive. Or, more specifically, IBM/360. Commented Apr 16, 2021 at 22:59
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    Oh, a closer look at your code suggests you're using Unix assembler. By $DIRSIZ you evidently mean 'literally the value DIRSIZ'. That would be written #DIRSIZ in the DEC assembly language, and $ is just another valid character in a name. Commented Apr 16, 2021 at 22:59
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    @another-dave True, I remember that convention for the PDP-11 assembler, but the code sample I was able to find is clearly for VAX, still it uses the same convention. Commented Apr 16, 2021 at 23:02