diff --git a/runtime/syntax/asm.vim b/runtime/syntax/asm.vim
index 6b8ce1e..0ce8d23 100644
--- a/runtime/syntax/asm.vim
+++ b/runtime/syntax/asm.vim
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 " Maintainer:	Erik Wognsen <erik.wognsen@gmail.com>
 "		Previous maintainer:
 "		Kevin Dahlhausen <kdahlhaus@yahoo.com>
-" Last Change:	2010 Apr 18
+" Last Change:	2012 Jan 5
 
 " Thanks to Ori Avtalion for feedback on the comment markers!
 
@@ -15,6 +15,9 @@
   finish
 endif
 
+let s:cpo_save = &cpo
+set cpo&vim
+
 syn case ignore
 
 " storage types
@@ -40,7 +43,7 @@
 " Various #'s as defined by GAS ref manual sec 3.6.2.1
 " Technically, the first decNumber def is actually octal,
 " since the value of 0-7 octal is the same as 0-7 decimal,
-" I prefer to map it as decimal:
+" I (Kevin) prefer to map it as decimal:
 syn match decNumber		"0\+[1-7]\=[\t\n$,; ]"
 syn match decNumber		"[1-9]\d*"
 syn match octNumber		"0[0-7][0-7]\+"
@@ -49,14 +52,34 @@
 
 syn keyword asmTodo		contained TODO
 
-" GAS supports various comment markers as described here:
-" http://sourceware.org/binutils/docs-2.19/as/Comments.html
-" I have commented out the ARM comment marker "@" by default as I think more
-" people are using "@" with the .type directive. See
-" http://sourceware.org/binutils/docs-2.19/as/Type.html
+
+" GAS supports one type of multi line comments:
 syn region asmComment		start="/\*" end="\*/" contains=asmTodo
+
+" Line comment characters depend on the target architecture and command line
+" options and some comments may double as logical line number directives or
+" preprocessor commands. This situation is described at
+" http://sourceware.org/binutils/docs-2.22/as/Comments.html
+" Some line comment characters have other meanings for other targets. For
+" example, .type directives may use the `@' character which is also an ARM
+" comment marker.
+" As a compromise to accommodate what I arbitrarily assume to be the most
+" frequently used features of the most popular architectures (and also the
+" non-GNU assembly languages that use this syntax file because their asm files
+" are also named *.asm), the following are used as line comment characters:
 syn match asmComment		"[#;!|].*" contains=asmTodo
-" syn match asmComment		"@.*" contains=asmTodo
+
+" Side effects of this include:
+" - When `;' is used to separate statements on the same line (many targets
+"   support this), all statements except the first get highlighted as
+"   comments. As a remedy, remove `;' from the above.
+" - ARM comments are not highlighted correctly. For ARM, uncomment the
+"   following two lines and comment the one above.
+"syn match asmComment		"@.*" contains=asmTodo
+"syn match asmComment		"^#.*" contains=asmTodo
+
+" Advanced users of specific architectures will probably want to change the
+" comment highlighting or use a specific, more comprehensive syntax file.
 
 syn match asmInclude		"\.include"
 syn match asmCond		"\.if"
@@ -97,7 +120,7 @@
   HiLink octNumber	Number
   HiLink binNumber	Number
 
-  HiLink asmIdentifier Identifier
+  HiLink asmIdentifier	Identifier
   HiLink asmType	Type
 
   delcommand HiLink
@@ -105,4 +128,7 @@
 
 let b:current_syntax = "asm"
 
+let &cpo = s:cpo_save
+unlet s:cpo_save
+
 " vim: ts=8