Assembly Language Programming

by Richard Pawson with Peter Higginson

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Assembly language means programming 'close to the metal': constructing a program from very simple instructions that can be executed directly by the processor.

Today, most software is written in high level programming languages. However, learning assembly language will give you a deeper understanding not only of how a processor works, but of programming in general.

The book guides the reader through a series of small projects, applying new techniques to write programs that are useful and interesting. The final chapter demonstrates the use of the all the techniques learned to create a complete implementation of the well-known ‘Snake’ game.

All examples in the book are designed to run on ARMlite, an online simulation of a simple computer based on a cut-down version of an ARM 32 processor.

Peter Higginson, who implemented ARMlite for this book, spent 40 years writing systems software in the computing and communications industry, and working in computer science education. In 1973 he connected the London Host to ARPANET - the first host outside the USA on what is now the Internet.