One Toe in a New Pool
Jun. 26th, 2015 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAs I started into the scanned files of Softalk now available online, I just happened to notice a new e-book collecting a column introducing assembly language that had run in that magazine for most of its life. Remembering how all the serious programs were written in that cryptic code I started reading the book with half an eye towards my Apple II emulator programs and the archives of old software on disk images, but this book had a crucial advantage in a new appendix explaining how to use a particular assembler. More than that, the original author Roger Wagner took things not just in small steps but offered some genuine "instant gratification" somewhat similar to the
programs near the beginning of the "how to program in BASIC" books. While I have seen a modern "teach yourself 6502 assembly" project online (proposing the whole project could be looked at as similar to learning Latin), most of its exercises seem a bit more abstract, a matter of looking at register numbers. The wrinkle, of course, was that in looking at 6502 assembly language even with the simulated hardware of the Apple II to command, I could feel a few reproachful thoughts of how I just might have embraced the CPUs I was actually using back then and tried learning 6809 assembly (I've long seen the Motorola chip praised by those who did program it) or even Z80 language.
In any case, this is pretty far removed from modern programming languages, which may ultimately compile down to modern assembly language but use what I imagine to be decades worth of accreting libraries. I suppose I've done nothing more so far than put a pebble on top of another one while wondering how solid the footing is underneath the mountain nearby I've never bothered to even look up at; the most elaborate thing I'm thinking ahead to is trying to convert the "Color Eater" program I started tinkering with again a little while ago to assembly, as I heard was done. (There are even some simple routines in the Apple II's ROM that ought to make working with the low-resolution screen a bit less involved than I'd first imagined.) Learning something, though, does seem to me better than not trying anything.
10 INPUT"WHAT'S YOUR NAME? ";N$ 20 PRINT"NICE TO MEET YOU, ";N$
programs near the beginning of the "how to program in BASIC" books. While I have seen a modern "teach yourself 6502 assembly" project online (proposing the whole project could be looked at as similar to learning Latin), most of its exercises seem a bit more abstract, a matter of looking at register numbers. The wrinkle, of course, was that in looking at 6502 assembly language even with the simulated hardware of the Apple II to command, I could feel a few reproachful thoughts of how I just might have embraced the CPUs I was actually using back then and tried learning 6809 assembly (I've long seen the Motorola chip praised by those who did program it) or even Z80 language.
In any case, this is pretty far removed from modern programming languages, which may ultimately compile down to modern assembly language but use what I imagine to be decades worth of accreting libraries. I suppose I've done nothing more so far than put a pebble on top of another one while wondering how solid the footing is underneath the mountain nearby I've never bothered to even look up at; the most elaborate thing I'm thinking ahead to is trying to convert the "Color Eater" program I started tinkering with again a little while ago to assembly, as I heard was done. (There are even some simple routines in the Apple II's ROM that ought to make working with the low-resolution screen a bit less involved than I'd first imagined.) Learning something, though, does seem to me better than not trying anything.