What Is Assembly Language?

Assembly language (ASM) is not a mythical dark art, in fact it's fundamental to computers operating at all. I take a quick look at a very simple assembly language and show where it fits in.

[paeden]

Indeed, well done Manchester. Love from the USA, stay strong, brothers across the big pond.

[juhanakaarlehto]

This dude looks exactly like the person I thought would teach me Assembly.

[Rtoledo]

Man!! You sent me back to 1977 when I was doing accounting programs for an Olivetti computer.

[ucmRich]

I vote for more Assembly videos and tutorials! if you would please :-)

[ZingsVideos]

Learned assembly language as a teenager when it was essential for making games. It remains as the voice in my head that complains when I write bloated, slow code.

[NeilRoy]

Back in the day, before optimizing compilers, you had to give some thought on how your program would be converted into machine code. C instructions like ++i were directly converted into a single machine language instruction (in this case, the INC, or increment instruction) which was far faster than say i = i + 1. There were a bunch of tricks you could do to improve your program's speed when you understood the machine language your code would be converted to.

There is still some optimizing you can do when you understand certain advanced topics on how the CPU operates. Things like the L1 and L2 caches, you can still organize your code to vastly improve speed when you understand how the CPU fetches large groups of instructions into cache (hint: it doesn't just fetch 1 instruction at a time). It's interesting anyhow and I watched some videos on the subject that demonstrated how some simple changes in code ended up in huge improvements in speed just by keeping in mind how the CPU cache works.

[Garfield_Minecraft]

coding in assembly looks fun(and hell at the same time)
you tell where the data should go and control everything from below
it's very close to machine language make you look like you can talk with computer
who made a game in assembly they are so impressive

respect who code in assembly 🙏

[ed]

Your channel is like a gem that I just came across with. This is exactly what I was looking for.

[TrebleWing]

Learning 6502 ASM was very rewarding. It is very simple to understand and get things fun working on old systems like the NES and c64

[roblastem]

Hello! I’m an EE of 15+ years, and I really enjoyed this video. I’ve been using varied versions of assembly to program different types of microcontrollers for a very long time, and it can be a bit of a pain (I recently switched to C full time, because programming USB HID devices in assembly is a nightmare). It’s nice to see someone with such a firm understanding of assembly explain it so well. Keep up the great work, sir!

[shane]

Great infomation, so happy I just found your channel. Currently in college taking data structures, computer arch, and theory of computation. Never saw the point of learning about computer architecture for programming. Thanks for the info and you got yourself a fan, stay safe and happy programming.

[gregandark]

why you don't write your own book on these stuff ?
You are awesome!!!

[Jared-Cruz]

I'm currently in my 3rd year of studying Computer Engineering at university and I just recently came across your channel a few days ago. Your content is amazing and super interesting. Keep it up!

[bogulans]

Seeing videos like this I cannot believe I can watch this high quality materials provided basically for free. Awesome work sir!

[doctortrouserpants]

I found this fascinating, I first heard about Assembly almost 40 years ago and never got round to finding out how it works, because it was always so mysterious and intimidating. It's really wonderful. Thanks Javidx9 for another illuminating experience!

[chocolate_squiggle]

Thank you I appreciated this overview and demonstration very much. Having worked and been around lots of IT, but never been a programmer, I had an idea that assembly was moving memory addresses about but that was all. Seeing you solve the simple multiplication problem with add/subtract and a loop made me realise it's not as far removed from a compiled language as I had thought. But I see you do need to understand the architecture and the instruction sets available. Great intro, thanks again.

[nivalius]

no words can describe my admiration for ASM and the people who are fluent in it, but for me it's still a dark magic

[williamshakespeare]

Liked and Subscribed!

Thank you javidx9. What a treasure to stumble upon your channel this evening. It takes me back to my first forays into the world of computing where I learned programming starting with Microsoft Basic on the Ohio Scientific C1P (6502 processor) and moved up to a Commodore 64 and Assembly code for the 6510 processor.

My neighbor, another school mate, and I used to program copies of our favorite arcade games. It was fun figuring out how to bend the machine to our will and to see how close to the original games we could get our versions of Donkey Kong, Joust, Defender, Q-Bert, and the like. I wish I had stayed with it.

Better late than never... 38 years later I'm returning to the game. After this jaunt down memory-lane, my path leads onward and upward. Self learning Front-End web development before diving into a Full-Stack Developer back-end program using a mix of resources (teamtreehouse, youtube videos, and books).

Thanks again for your well produced and easy to follow style of sharing your knowledge and love of coding. You've planted a seed (C++) and with a little watering (and more than a little weed pulling, cobweb dusting, etc.) I can easily see myself being drawn back down the rabbit hole into the magical / mystical world of assembly code.

[hommefatale]

I have always thought my mind wasn't working right when I sat through 6 hours of lectures and couldn't understand anything but this guy explained this all I needed to understand under 30 minutes. Thank you sir. I knew it when a guy keeps his hair long and has a beard is the proper IT guy to go to. You won't be let down. Thank you again.

[gianz]

Thanks for the great explanation, mate! It has revived my fascination for this subject. Back in my teen years (in the eighties) I grew up with 1st gen consoles, Commodore 64 and then Amiga 500 and was so in love with the subject, I wanted to become an electronic engineer. But my grades in math were bad (thanks teachers!) so I took a very different path: foreign languages (English/German) and literature. Accidents and experiences came that took me - with a huge lot of zigzagging - to were I am, but that old love for bits and chips is still there, wanting to finally be taken more seriously. Your channel seems a very good (re)starting point!