Curricula (was: Assembly vs. Everything Else

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
Date: Sat Aug 25 23:13:15 2001

>Tony Duell wrote:

> > > I've been both told and taught that assembly is not used anymore on the Intel
> > > platform, at least not Intel-based computers, and that modern compilers do
> > > the job much better anyway.
> > Assembly is still used, just very rarely, and usually for the lowest
> > levels of the operating system. I just checked Linux 2.0.39 (which I run on
> Just out of curiousity, how do you write a compiler (from scratch, for a
> new procrssor) if you don't understand the assembly language/machine code
> for that processor. Or are you assuming that somebody else is going to
> write a pefectly good compiler?

Jerome Fine replies:

These days, when you build new hardware, it is tested with an emulator just as
you would write an emulator for old hardware that is no longer cost effective
to produce. Then you write a cross-assembler which runs on a different set
of hardware instructions to produce the first native assembler that can run
either under the emulator or eventually the real hardware - if it is ever produced.

Since I have not been directly involved in such a project, I don't know the
details, but these days you can't produce a modern new computer without the
current computers.

Did you know that Intel uses computers to run their production lines? And
did you know that they don't generally use Intel boxes but probably Alpha
boxes with VMS as the operating system since the former are not reliable
enough. At least, that is what I have seen discussed on the news groups
by people who have seen the Intel production lines.

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
Received on Sat Aug 25 2001 - 23:13:15 BST