LiveCode Forums

Hi all,

Today, I found this book and just have to
post the link in this forum:
http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~ed/assembly64.pdf

Al

Well, aside from this small mistake in the introduction -

Assembly language is as close to the processor as
you can get as a programmer.

It looks like it will be a pretty good read.

Thanks Al!

I am so glad I do not have to program in assembly language.

Craig

I sneaked a peek, and got horribly scared!

Oh come on now, it isn't that bad I was rather pleased to learn they finally came out with some hybrid compilers

bogs wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 10, 2018 6:05 pm

Oh come on now, it isn't that bad

No, it's WORSE!

Klaus, you probably read this joke:

If you give someone a program, you will
frustrate them for a day; if you teach them
to program, you will frustrate them for a
lifetime.

Al

I learned and programmed in assembly language when I first started. It really takes programming to its basics. In fact any other language that you may write in is ultimately compiled Into machine language/assembly language. (Assembly language is basically machine language with human readable tags)

Learning assembly language is tedious and very detail oriented but you learn much about how a computer really works and it’s basic parts - registers, buffers, memory, etc. You also understand many concepts such as zero-based indexing, buffering, pointers, stacks, interrupts, threads and more. It makes you a better programmer in other languages because you understand the trade-offs made in each language and how to best to take advantages of the design of the language. You better understand the operational difference between RISC and CISC cpus. (Reduced vs Complex Instruction Set Computers).

Most popular computer games are written in general purpose languages (C, C++, C#, etc) but parts are written in assembly language to speed up the action and reduce bottlenecks. In fact, the general purpose languages are usually written in assembly language themselves. Windows, OSX and even Ubuntu are written in assembly language of the chip they are running on. Every CPU has its own assembly language specific to that chip. So if Apple decides to port OSX over to its own Axx chips, they will have to rewrite OSX in its own assembly language

If you really want to learn about the design of computers and how they work, it is worth the effort. Programming will make more sense and you will find it easier to learn any language. You will become a better programmer.

you learn much about how a computer really works

Hey, I know what happens inside those fizzing boxes is MAGIC: Please don't spoil that for me.

I cut my teeth on Z80 assembler with the ZX Spectrum. It was cool then. It got impossibly beyond capability after that.

Well, anyone who is over about 45 will have had something to do with Assembler language at one time or another. I was "doing something" (mainly getting cluster headaches) on the University of Durham, England mainframe in 1984: mind you, it made me appreciate PASCAL.

Could be useful to create an interactive simulation of this course
within a LiveCode stack?

Al

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 10, 2018 10:27 pm

Well, anyone who is over about 45 will have had something to do with Assembler language at one time or another. I was "doing something" (mainly getting cluster headaches) on the University of Durham, England mainframe in 1984: mind you, it made me appreciate PASCAL.

You and I have similar experiences Richmond, minus the university part I started with machine code, went to assembly for a while, then went to pascal after not touching programming for some number of years. I really loved Pascal and re-learned to like programming again

Uh, after the end of my career as a musician in 1993, I turned into computers at the age of 37, never touched such thing before. Three years later I made a living teaching about 10 DTP (Photoshop, Quark XPress etc.) and Multimedia (Audio-/video-editing, 3D, Director etc.) apps at a local training center.

On my first Mac LC "Hypercard" was pre-installed, but I did not really "get it" at that time.

Later I discovered X-Talk with "SuperCard" (in the old days without internet access), had some successful attempts in "Director" and then found my love "Metacard", the first Win and Mac version came out in 1999, got hooked and the rest is history!

P.S.
So no, I did not have "something to do with Assembler language at one time or another".