Assembly language

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iAmThePope

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Hi guys, can someone please recommend a good place to start learning assembly language? It is just for personal interest and knowledge, I've done quite a bit of research and just cannot find a good place to start? I would prefer something that I can use on my win64 machine with an amd turion. Thanks:)

P.s this will not be my first programming language nor my last... Just would like to know what is going on at the lowest level when I say run a java application
 
It is really a basic language with only a few real commands. Some of the American Universities have course lectures online that you can start with. I tried to learn some of it but it was unfortunately a bit pointless for my taste.
 
If youre studying computer science then unfortunately yes, still being taught in cos151 at university of Pretoria and aids in logic correction for the guys just starting out with programming :)
 
I don't think you should waste time with it. Back in the early '80s I/we had to but today is a bit pointless, well unless you are a engineer designing chips. Before you learn assembly you have to learn the in and outs of the processor. I bet you don't know the pin count never mind which is doing what. You can learn the basics like what it is and what it does but learning to actually program stuff, is a waste of time. I remember we learned the entire semester the 6502 innards and in the last 2 weeks we learned assembly (that was back in 1983 !) I hope this helps.
 
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sigh ... brings back memories .... studied this way way way back when, and even then it was
frustrating and pointless, but I suppose it does teach you the correct type of thinking when you
start coding... have fun !
 
I made a thread about one of my mini projects using Assembler to make a buggy that would guide itself through a maze. It's minimal, but there is a snippet of assembler code at the end to give you an idea of the structure.

http://mygaming.co.za/forum/showthread.php/18822-Voicy-s-buggy-project?

The PIC16F84 is probably the most basic one to begin with, so if I were you, without bothering with building DEV boards and the likes, try and pull a spec sheet pdf of it (the spec sheet tells you which pins do what, the address banks and eeprom settings as well as every command you'll need to be able to program it. It'll even tell you how to convert from your code to hex and machine code, so that way you really know what's what.)

MPLab6 was the latest assembler compiler I worked with and you get plugins for it that allows you to simulate your code on a 'on screen' microcontroller.

gl;hf
 
Ask fvdbergh here on the forum. He is very knowledgeable :)
 
Assembly will be meaningless to you if you don't know how the hardware works. As Voicy mentioned, pull up the datasheet of some simple, 8-bit microcontroller like the PIC he mentioned. Once you learn how the hardware interacts and works, you'll learn how those actions translate to assembly. From then on, it's just about learning more specialised instructions.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I will definitely look into these resources. When I was in my first year of study we did a little bit of MIPS but it was just a slight overview. I will see how it goes for me:)

@Voicy, that is a supercool project.. Would've liked to see the dune buggy lol.. But that is the kind of thing I would love to be able to do. Especially the part where you talked about controlling lights using your old WAP. I guess I got a long way to go before I can do that hey..
 
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I love assembly, have not touched it in yonks but it's the only language I can program in.

If you want to learn assembly maybe look at a project involving microcontrollers etc.
 
I love assembly, have not touched it in yonks but it's the only language I can program in.

If you want to learn assembly maybe look at a project involving microcontrollers etc.
 
I use assembly purely for mathematic optimizations when i want to leverage different CPU instruction sets. Its good for multi media type programming, such as compression and stuff that requires fast computations

http://flatassembler.net/
 
Assembly is still used/useful for individuals..... Especially if you're a cracker.

I've seen it used for optimization for things like md5 brute forcers, where they reverse engineer several programs, or the same program simply compiled with different compilers, to try and create the fastest algorithm

I used it to write a few PIC programs, but even that was frustrating enough... trying to do "simple" things like multiplying, or string lookup tables across multiple memory banks..

If you're using windows, you could try Flat ASM. It comes with a few examples, and the exe's it complies can be as little as 1KB
http://flatassembler.net/
 
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