I remember when

[johndowe]

Hi there.

Sesame, there is nothing that canot be done with ASM that can be done with other languages, but some things,fvery few things are better the way they are programmed now, like web pages with HTML, XML, Perl, Java, JavaScript, and laymen do not program operating systems, games, or any applications, programmers do, and they are geeks, personally i am a cpu tech and we too are geeks, and object programing is the problem with programming today, everybody is too lazy to put in the effort so they take the easy path of object programing, which is required to symplify web page design, but not to program games or any application that runs directly from the o.s. (like games, text editors, ETC.).

Assembler which is assembled (similar to compiled) to machine language which is the native tongue of the processor, no interpretors or code libraries are required to run it, almost, it does need the o.s. and all the drivers etc. and it is so much more versatile than any other language the only limits of ASM are the limits of the computer it is designed to run on, contrarily to other "evolved" languages, that supports ALMOST everything programmers need, or more precicely what the programers of the language tought the users of their language would need, but what if you want to include something that the designers of the language you are using didn't program any support for? What do you do? You wait for the next version of the language? You could, but in "C" you can program in ASM to make your missing routines, ASM who knew?

ASM is the ultimate programming language, but it is not for the faint of heart, the lazy or second rate programmers, it is for true programers that are willing to put in the effort, who know their computers, who understand how their computer works and how to make it sing instead of making it stutter like microsoft, and most softwre company today, LAZY, LAZY, LAZY.

Got carried away again.

JohnDowe.

[sesame]

Originally Posted by johndowe

Assembler which is assembled (similar to compiled) to machine language which is the native tongue of the processor, no interpretors or code libraries are required to run it, almost, it does need the o.s. and all the drivers etc. and it is so much more versatile than any other language the only limits of ASM are the limits of the computer it is designed to run on, contrarily to other "evolved" languages, that supports ALMOST everything programmers need, or more precicely what the programers of the language tought the users of their language would need, but what if you want to include something that the designers of the language you are using didn't program any support for? What do you do? You wait for the next version of the language? You could, but in "C" you can program in ASM to make your missing routines, ASM who knew?

ASM is the ultimate programming language, but it is not for the faint of heart, the lazy or second rate programmers, it is for true programers that are willing to put in the effort, who know their computers, who understand how their computer works and how to make it sing instead of making it stutter like microsoft, and most softwre company todayJohnDowe.

That was a very good answer.

But then, only a handful of geeks will have the privilege to work with computers, if they used only ASM. And even lesser will be the number of programmers willing to deal with ASM as the only language.

Consider the hazzard of bug fixing in ASM. And what Operating sys are you talking about? Obviously its not Windows or Linux? You must be thinking of DOS! And whats wrong with OOPs (object oriented prog)? Its such a versatile and dynamic concept created to deal with so many situations! Why dont you like it? You are paying too much attention to structure and stability.

[johndowe]

Hi there.

Have you ever programmed in assembler?

There is no more hazzard in debuging in ASM than any other language, if anything it is easyer because of the 1:1 relationship from the source code to the program file, and there are ML (machine language) Monitors that are used to debug the code, and even program in ASM, a good example is "DEBUG" which is a ML Monitor, which IS still avaliable in my version of win xp sp2 upgraded to sp3+ unfortunately there are no assemblers for win xp & P4's+.

I do not hate object programing, as i said it is great in web page design, but in more involved programing it does make things easyer but it makes the gap between the programer and the processor that much grater which is not a good thing.

When i was in colege a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, or so it seems, i took a course in the basic language on a DEC PDP11 with DECWriter (printing) terminals, i programmed a little game i called "x-wing.bas", it was based on the final battle in Star Wars where Luke and the others go to destroy the Death Star, first there you had to destroy 20 tie fighters and then the Death Star, i programmed it not for everybody to see the listing and immidiately see how the program worked, i programmed it for the computer to "underatand" the program, most would call it spaghetti code, but it worked well and it did fit in the 8k of memory we had avaliable at the time, if i would have programmed like my teacher tought me, i never would have been able to fot it in the memory that i had, my point is i understood how the computer worked and i used it to my advantage and i did something that i shouldn't have been able to do with what i had, i used my brain and i did not rely on the language to do the work for me, i did the work and it paid off, so much so that i gave copies to some of my freinds, and later i saw it and two modifications, one was with Human against the Cylons and the other was about cops and robers, but the listing confirmed that it was my logics they only changed the text, they even left the 1 bug that i hadn't corrected when i gave them the copy of the game, i felt flattered that programing students would find my work worth keeping and worth the effort of modifying the text, while keeping MY logic intact.

If you know how to program in assembler, you can program in any other language all you need to know is the instructions and the syntax of the language and you're good to go, but it is a one way thing, if you can program in basic or pascal, you'll have to learn how to program in assembler, your knoledge of the other languages will help a but but no where near as much as assembler will help for other languages.

It is a sad thing that they have stopped teaching assembler to new programming students it would give them a much better understanding of the computers they are programming, and make them better programmers.

Structure and stability:

Stability is VERY important, do you like it when your computer crashes? While you were working on your report that was due in only a few hours? I don't think so.

In assembler there is no pre-established structure, you program it as you want, if you program well, you will reward yourself with easy to debug code, if you don't well good luck with the debugging, and mantaining of the code for future updates.

Also, if you made a sub routine in asm which you use frequently in that program and then later in the program you would only need the end part of that sub routine, in asm you just jump to that part of the subroutine and that's it, you don't have to make major modifications to the program or the subroutine, it is that simple.

If you want a code example ask me & i will specify 8086 or 6502 code.

JohnDowe.

[sesame]

Johndowe,
That was a nice speech on the goodness of ASM.
I did some programming in my childhood... during my Diploma.
That was quite some time ago. I started reading this ebook on extensive programming in ASM... then lost interest and gave up. Thats because nobody cared about an ASM programmer anymore. I did some sool stuff with Basic in those ancient times though.:D Then I Jumped to C and VB... Javascript, Actionscript... so on.

Reading your thoughts, I think I will give it another try; since you say that ASM is so fundamental for programming. The book is called:
The Art of Assembly.

I still remember small fragments of programming...
PUSH CS
MOV DX,80H
INT 10H
JZ GETHDB
JB BOOTUP and such like :D

[johndowe]

Hi there.

It is easyer to understand more complex concepts if you know the fundamentals.

And good luck with it.

You also can use DEBUG to do some thinkering in asm.

If you should find an assembler for pentium 4+ that works with XP+ let me know.

JohnDowe.

[sesame]

The DOS we use nowadays in Windows XP is not the same as it used to be. Its more like a servant of Windows. It's capabilities have been reduced, some commands have been excluded. But why do you think they have still kept DEBUG?

Can ASM cooperate with other softwares?

[johndowe]

Hi there.

Sesane, you seem to know a bit about ASM but you still have alot of mis-conceptions about it, all programs that are in .exe .dll and several others are in machine language for the processor to execute, the BIG difference between "C" and all its variants or Pascal and all its variants and ASM is that asm will ALWAYS be better programmed, so will an asm program "play nice" with other programs, the ansewer is yes, it will only not "play nice" with other programs if it is programmed to do so.

What i mean about asm is that it is very hard to program asm like an idiot, if you unassemble a program written in an "evolved" language you would see jumps that jump to the very next instruction in other words totally useless, the same for branches that branch to the very next instruction so it would go to the next instruction weather the branc is taken or not, also totally useless, and the program would be filled with such useless instructions. which take up both memory space and processor time, so what? 3-4 bytes here 8-10 clock cycles there who cares? Well if it was only once or twice a program, it wouldn't matter much, but it's not once or twice per program it's more like once every 10-20 bytes, it really adds up.

As an example i wrote a small (DOS/ASM) program that displayed the key codes from the keyboard, it displayed the ascii code, & the key code in hexadecimal and decimal, the program was also self explanatory if you typed it with a "/?", the whole program was about 1200 bytes, not that big is it? And i did all the hex and dec routines myself, then i borrowed a "c++" programing book, on the cd there was a keyboard scaner, like i the one i wrote, his didn't self explain it just wrote the letter and the scan code in decimal, mine was much more complete and functionnal, his was 33K's long programmed in "C++", mine was more functionnal gave more info, and was about 28 times smaller, and was MUCH faster, but since the program was waiting on keypresses the speed advantage was not visible, but it would have been at least 50 times faster, the same would be true for most programs, except for some of the more intricate graphics, size wize only, the speed might actually be even faster, because the graphic routines would be way more effective.

So a program is a program wheather(excuse my french) it is programmed in asm c or any other programing language, the thing is the one programmed in asm will be more much more compact will execute much faster, and wouldn't require "run time libraries" like many programs today.

But there a few dis-advantages to asm, 1'st it is as i first said, not for the faint of heart, second rate programmers can easily be weded out though, 2 it is easier to reverse engineer the code is usually quite clean, even if the programmer has a "spaghetti code" programing style, and 3, because of the symplicity and similarity of the instructions it can be easy to make logical errors that can be hard to find, but when you find them you feel like kicking yourself.

But i think the smaller program size and BLAZING speed greatly outweigh the dis-advantages, more so for operating systems and other computing intencive tasks.

JohnDowe.