Learning x86 Assembly

Stuxnet

I've just finished first year in UL doing Comp sci & info Systems, we studied java, I'm led to believe we'll doing c/c++ in second year also. So prograaming isnt too new to me.

We had one subject this year, comp org, I found it really really interesting, we touched on a tiny bit of machine code with it.
We wont be doing it again next year to my disappointment.

I'm not a fan of OO development I find it boring, but I am really keen and interested in low level hardware, would love to learn assembly, I really think this is the route Id like to go career wise after college.

Can anyone reccomend some texts I can be studying and trying myself, to increase my knowledge of assembly, or any advice appreciated !

Thanks

Kidchameleon

Christ I'm a long way off learning machine code at the moment but I did happen to flick through a few books in town the other day. There was a good selection of Assembly language books in Hoggis Figgis and they looked surprisingly easy to understand...

Art_Wolf

Hmm most of the assembly we learnt was from lecture notes. This may not be what you are looking for but the book Modern Compiler Implementation in Java was great in explaining how assembly is turned into OO languages.

JohnathanM

You might want to take a look here:

http://www.grc.com/smgassembly.htm

You'll see a reference to "The Art of Assembly Language" alongside some other links which might be of use. If you are on Windows, that page also has a decent example of a simple application and links to Masm32. You're heading into HLA territory here, but it might be a decent start anyhow.

Dale Parish

Art of Assembly is awesome.
http://homepage.mac.com/randyhyde/webster.cs.ucr.edu/www.artofasm.com/Windows/index.html

Dboy85

Hardcore stuff

Anima

What are you going to do with it though?

These days its less and less useful to know assembly. There are some cases like fine tuning loops (done sometimes with DSP apps) but the majority of code will be written in a high level language for a few reasons.

The compiler will do a better job most of the time. To write a big application completely in assembly is too time consuming and error prone.

Most devices are more than powerful enough to use higher level languages. Most embedded devices will use C and even C++ / Java these days.

satchmo

There are plenty of advantages of knowing assembly, but I agree that being able to program with it isn't especially useful these days. There are still cases - eg. all our low-level skinning code it written in assembly - but even then I'd argue that intrinsics might have done an as good or better job.

I've found the most useful aspect of knowing assembly is being able to understand what the compiler is doing with your code and why. There are plenty of times I've needed to view disassembly in order to debug something. It might be because of memory corruption, diagnosing threading issues, or because of a crash that only happens in Release where you don't have any debug symbols. I'm not alone either - have a look at Elan Ruskin's excellent GDC talk, Forensic Debugging, to see how useful understanding assembly can be.

In general, I think an understanding of assembly definitely gives a better understanding of how the CPU and related hardware works, which seems to be what the OP is after.

ARGINITE

How we learned assembly in college: Easy Pic'n and ask Micro Chip for some sample Pics and you have nearly everything you need to start a small project, the best way to learn or if your a bit more adventures try BareMetal OS a 64Bit OS written completely in assembler.

Chefburns

Have a look at ARM assembly language its very well documented and its quite simple to learn.

Stuxnet

Anima wrote: »

What are you going to do with it though?


These days its less and less useful to know assembly. There are some cases like fine tuning loops (done sometimes with DSP apps) but the majority of code will be written in a high level language for a few reasons.

The compiler will do a better job most of the time. To write a big application completely in assembly is too time consuming and error prone.

Most devices are more than powerful enough to use higher level languages. Most embedded devices will use C and even C++ / Java these days.

well I'm not too sure atm, as I said in my first post I find so far what ive learnt in high level, boring, maybe because it's java, but I presume they all fairly similar bar syntax ?

I have a keen interest in low level hardware, ideally I think I'd like to get involved with cpu/spu development ! I wasn't aware these can be developed in high level also ! Im just finished first year, we dont cover this stuff, Im chasing it out of my own interest....

advice is appreciated tho !

fasty

C might be sufficiently low level to start with. The syntax might look familiar to Java but C maps much closer to hardware. The lower level parts of operating systems would be written in C.

Knowing about assembly is worth it though as it helps understand the hardware. Knowing how to lay out your data structures in memory in C or C++ to play nicely with the cache, knowing the consequences of branching and doing things quickly often depend on knowing the language and the hardware.

Plus implementing data structures in C is worth it. You'd be amazed how few people couldn't write a linked list if you asked them to!

unknownlegend

I write mostly c# day to day. Recently I've been working on an application re-write. The bulk of it was written in COBOL (financial app), however the core was written in HLASM (IBM's high level assembler). It was written in 1978, a time when an abundance of memory and processing power was NOT available and it is watertight in terms of computational efficiency and speed.

I am quite familiar with x86, so picked up HLASM pretty quick as I wasn't writing it, just re-implementing in an OO way which has its own curious quirks. Clearly previous knowledge of a low level language has uses in modern development, though I don't expect this is a regular occurrence

Knowing a low level language has huge benefits in knowing how to properly disassemble and debug code like a demon. You'll also have a deep knowledge of what the compiler does to your high level code. However, given the increase in architecture insulation (see, JIT, CLR, mono & mobile devices, etc...) use of a low level language for large scale development is realistically reserved to those interested in developing new hardware, researching new low wattage/power devices, etc.

Still, I think programmers in general should have a good grounding in at least one assembler language. OP, check out IBMs documentation on HLASM if you want to see something that isn't the usual Intel, Motorola, et al.

Stuxnet

Thanks, very helpful :-)

Will do

tadcan

www.showmedo.com have some video tutorials including some on assembly.