SemiOT: Mourning for Classic Computing

From: Paul Williams <celigne_at_tinyworld.co.uk>
Date: Wed Aug 15 13:42:02 2001

"Jeffrey S. Sharp" wrote:
>
> Right! I've always wondered why so many of the other programmers I
> have met have held assembly language in such low esteem. Depending
> on the particular make/model of processor you're dealing with, it
> can be downright elegant.

Horses for courses. The "low esteem" would probably be reserved for the
few nutters who would like to construct large systems solely in assembly
language, and then find that no one else can maintain them. However, as
I work in the embedded real-time world, I mostly construct systems that
are a hybrid of assembly and a high-level language.

> I've always thought that one of the more simple assembly languages
> would be a great 'first language' for someone wanting to learn how
> to program. Who's with me?

Strangely enough, the curriculum setters for "O" level Computer Studies
back in the early 1980s. Before we moved onto BASIC, we were taught
CESIL (Computer Education in Schools Instructional Language), which had
statements like "JIZERO label" instead of "while" or "for"!
Unfortunately our particular interpreter missed one of the advantages of
assembly language -- it was written in BASIC and crawled along on our
RML 380Z. If the monitor program of the 380Z had disassembled
instructions, it would have been a much better tool and we all could
have learned Z80. (That got relegated to my lunchtimes).
Received on Wed Aug 15 2001 - 13:42:02 BST