The Art of Assembly Language Programming

Visitor Count: As of October 17, 1996

Forward

  • Why Would Anyone Learn This Stuff?

Chapter Overview:

  1. What’s Wrong With Assembly Language? - Examining criticisms and limitations.
  2. What’s Right With Assembly Language? - Understanding the benefits and uses.
  3. Text Organization and Teaching Approach - Overview of pedagogical concerns and text layout.

Section One: Machine Organization

Chapter 1 - Data Representation

  • 1.1 Numbering Systems
  • 1.1.1 - Overview of the Decimal System.
  • 1.1.2 - Introduction to the Binary System.
  • 1.1.3 - Binary Formats.
  • 1.2 Data Organization
  • 1.2.1 - Bits
  • 1.2.2 - Nibbles
  • 1.2.3 - Bytes
  • 1.2.4 - Words
  • 1.2.5 - Double Words
  • 1.3 Hexadecimal Numbering System - Exploring hexadecimal representations.

Arithmetic and Logical Operations

  • 1.4 - Arithmetic on Binary and Hexadecimal.
  • 1.5 - Logical Operations on Bits.
  • 1.6 - Logical Operations on Binary Numbers and Bit Strings.

Additional Concepts in Binary Data

  • 1.7 Signed and Unsigned Numbers - Differences and implications.
  • 1.8 Sign and Zero Extension - Practical uses.
  • 1.9 Shifts and Rotates - Binary manipulation techniques.
  • 1.10 Bit Fields and Packed Data - Efficient data storage methods.
  • 1.11 The ASCII Character Set - Text representation in binary.

Summary

Assembly Language provides a foundational understanding of data representation, bitwise operations, and direct memory manipulation, essential for optimizing code and achieving hardware-level control.