[Coco] Linville's ramblings on assembly vs machine code
Salvador Garcia
salvadorgarciav at yahoo.com
Mon Jul 10 12:37:21 EDT 2017
In a few words, I agree with you Dave.
A programmer does not have to know ML to program in ASM, but knowing it will make him or her a better ASM programmer..
I liked your push/pull and short/long jump examples. Knowing how the push and pull instructions are represented, a programmer does not need to waste mental energy wondering which register should come first or last. Knowing how the short and long jumps are different can be the difference between code working or not working within an ISR.
Salvador
On Monday, July 10, 2017, 2:25:42 AM CDT, Dave Philipsen <dave at davebiz.com> wrote:
Ok, so the list seems rather quiet so I'll try to stir the pot a bit
here. On the CoCo Crew Podcast John Linville rambled on for about nine
minutes telling us how machine code is essentially the same as assembler
and there's no reason to even try to learn it as it's simply a different
(and more difficult) way of 'saying' the same thing. His reference was
to a question posed by John Mark Mobley on 5/31 at 11:52 AM.
I am in agreement with part of what John said. That is, that machine
code and assembler are essentially just different ways of 'saying' the
same thing. However, John went on to say that you're already cool if
you know how to code in assembler and you don't have to show how macho
you are by entering in the raw data which is representative of the
assembler mnemonics.
First, let's look at John Mark's original question: How do you practice
simple machine code on a CoCo. (?) This is just to teach the basics of
machine code as an introduction to assembly. What steps should one
follow to practise machine code. (?) Note that John Mark mentioned that
this was just to teach the 'basics' of machine code as an 'introduction'
to assembly. It's not a full blown course on how to write a huge piece
of code entirely in machine language.
In my personal opinion, I can see why an instructor would want his
students to at least get a taste of how entering raw numerical data as
'machine code' actually works. It's certainly not necessary to memorize
all of the hex (or octal or binary or decimal) codes that represent all
of the processor opcodes with all of their different addressing modes.
That would be ridiculous (and difficult)! But, seeing how machine code
differs from assembler gives you an eye into how the CPU actually
works. Here are a couple of examples:
I was talking with someone once about pushing and pulling registers
to/from the stack on the 6809. He had a concern about how one
particular disassembler represented the order in which a list of
registers would be pushed or pulled. From the point of view of someone
who worked purely with assembly mnemonics and never even bothered to
look at the machine codes that had been assembled, this might be a valid
question. Does it matter how you order the registers when you push or
pull them? (i.e. is pshs a,b,x,y different than pshs y,x,b,a ?)
If when you learned assembler you at least got a taste of how it relates
to machine code you would know right away that it matters not because
each of the registers to be pushed or pulled is represented by a single
bit in a post code byte that follows the opcode. The processor will
always push or pull the registers in the same order regardless of how
you write it in assembler. So to answer the question: no, pshs a,b,x,y
is not any different than pshs y,x,b,a.
Another example might be when using the load effective address
instruction. Why is the construction of leax 1,x any different than
leax 100,x? Again, a person who is only familiar with the assembler
mnemonics would not necessarily understand that the former needs one
post byte while the latter needs two.
The same might be true with bhi and lbhi. A person not familiar with
the machine codes might wonder why there is even a differentiation
between branches and long branches. Why not just write them all as long
branches? A good book on assembly language (like Lance Leventhal's)
will explain why. And when it explains why, you are actually delving
into machine language. Now you understand why long and short branches
are necessary and why stack order is not important. In fact Leventhal's
book could have been entitled '6809 Assembler Language Programming with
machine code examples'!
So, yes, it doesn't make much sense to 'learn' machine language or code
with it. But, it makes a lot of sense to understand it fundamentally.
This becomes even more necessary when you are doing any of the
following: 1) programming in an environment where the amount of memory
is severely limited, 2) programming something that can only be
accomplished in assembler/machine code because of timing and/or speed
issues, and 3) working in a target environment where an assembler is not
available. The last issue, number 3, may be when you use a machine to
assemble code that ends up in an embedded device that has neither a mass
storage device nor enough memory to run an assembler.
Many of us have written assembler code that runs on our CoCos,
Commodores, Apples, etc. but have never written the same type of code
(6809, 6502, Z80, etc.) to run on another target with limited
resources. Those of us who have will tell you that it is very
beneficial to at least have an understanding of machine code and how it
works.
Most of us, however, know the difference between the word "can't" and
the expression "can not" (or cannot). Even though they all mean the
same thing I think that you would consider yourself better educated for
knowing the difference.
Dave
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