assembly -- where would you begin

[audit]

I want to learn enough assembly to be able to ask intelligent questions about assembly. As a hobby programmer I have found that I can be more productive at my day job since I have learned to write a little C++ over the last year.

Now I find that there are certain problems that I really don't understand because I have no understanding of real low level programming.

So I want to learn to write in assembly and to do some basic exercises.

Where would you begin?

[i.n.g.o.]

Hm.

i would start reading this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language

a quick search on the net also brought up this:
http://www.freebyte.com/programming/assembler/

and this:
http://asm.sourceforge.net/

i.n.g.o.

[audit]

The reason I want to learn assembly is because I do not really understand the errors messages my complier sends me sometimes. I do not understand segment faults, stack overflow and memory addresses are Greek to me.

I just want to learn enough to ask questions and find answers.

[Simian Man]

I learned by just taking some C programs (NOT C++ ones), compiling them with the -S flag and poking through the generated assembly. Figure out what is going on, try to make changes to the program at the asm level. Look stuff up that doesn't make sense etc. Then again I already knew MIPS and Sparc assembly pretty well from school, so it was easier to pick up x86.

It's good to know how assembly works, but not really worth it to master that skill imho.

[ratcheer]

I agree that you are better prepared if you know assembler. I used to program IBM 370 and 390 mainframes in assembler, mainly because I hated COBOL. I learned a ton about how the computers actually worked. Especially one time after a production VSAM catalog maintence program used all its memory in the middle of the night and I had to learn how to add memory by doing GETMAIN's and FREEMAIN's.

Ah, the 80's....

Tim

[audit]

How would I decide what assembler to use? Are there any good books? Are web tutorials good enough? Does the operating system I use make a difference? Does the computer I use make a difference?

[unknownPoster]

Does the operating system I use make a difference? Does the computer I use make a difference?

Assembly is processor specific. If your computer is x86 based, you'll be writing x86 assembly. If your computer is SPARC based, you'll be writing SPARC assembly. If your processor is z80 based, you'll be writing z80 assembly.

That being said, x86 is probably the dominant processor family in personal computers, so chances are you can natively run x86 assembly.

In my personal life, I didn't truly grasp Assembly until I received formal classroom instruction, but your experience may vary.

[Simian Man]

How would I decide what assembler to use?

The GNU assembler is as good as any and is probably already installed.

Does the operating system I use make a difference?

Yes.

Does the computer I use make a difference?

Not unless you use something unusual like an PowerPC Mac or a Sparc machine.

[audit]

I have an assembler already installed "as". I took I quick look at the man page. Any suggestions on books? or on-line tutorials? Or something to beware of before I start googling. All advice is appreciated.

[matt_symes]

Hi

Assuming you want to write for the x86 architecture then you will need the Intel manuals at some point.

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/

This is a search results by someone asking exactly the same question as you

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8...tutorial-linux

You really won't regret learning a bit of assembler.

Kind regards