Questions tagged [assembly]
For questions about Assembly Language in general. Also use the appropriate processor's tag.
3
votes
1answer
233 views
Why does this 6502 code push a function address onto the stack before calling?
I am learning how to program the Atari 800 by examining some tutorial code that came with the IDE/Assembler I am using. I am using the MADS assembler for this.
putchar_ptr = $346
csrhinh = 752
...
7
votes
2answers
659 views
How useful were the 6809/6309's indirect addressing modes?
Much like the VAX, the 6809 and 6309 have a preponderance of indirect addressing modes (in VAX parlance, "deferred"), though neither go so far as to include a VAX-like doubly-indirect mode.
To what ...
15
votes
2answers
4k views
What does “jmp *” mean in 6502 assembly?
Right now I am learning 6502 assembly. Currently I am using the MADS assembler to program for the Atari 800. This program is just a small tutorial program that came with the assembler zip file I ...
1
vote
2answers
189 views
Resource for 6502 assembly directives?
I am currently learning about 6502 assembly. One of the documents I am learning about it from is a super mario bros. disassembly document. When I was reading the code I noticed part of the code had ...
7
votes
2answers
2k views
6502 CMP instruction doesn't compare as expected
I am trying to code in 6502 assembly and for some reason the CMP instruction doesn't work. For example:
CLD
LDY #$03
LDA #$00
LDX #$05
CMP Y
BEQ Equal
STX $0200
Equal:
BRK
...
6
votes
2answers
319 views
When did Intel undergo the SEX change?
I am reading the book "The 8086 / 8088 Primer Second Edition" by Stephen P Morse. In it on page 54, it says
The 8086 provides instructions to facilitate the task of sign extension. These ...
9
votes
2answers
816 views
What is an “unused” memory address?
Reading this page on Commodore 64 memory structure and usage I stumbled across a cell where the table claims that this memory is unused. What exactly does this entail?
Does this mean that if you ...
57
votes
13answers
12k views
Were later MS-DOS versions still implemented in x86 assembly?
Recently, Microsoft published the source code of old MS-DOS versions on GitHub.
What is odd in my opinion is the use of x86 assembly language for everything. The assembly language would not be my ...
13
votes
1answer
302 views
SYSENTER/SYSEXIT broken on Pentium Pro and Pentium II?
I was just What is linux-gate.so.1?, and it says this
Intel recognized this problem early on and introduced a more efficient system call interface in the form of sysenter and sysexit instructions. ...
4
votes
1answer
191 views
What instructions for the 8086 and subsequent x86 CPUs are not available in Long Mode?
I know from this answer that,
Modern x86 CPUs are binary compatible with 8086. You can literally run 8086 binaries on a modern PC, in real mode. (The species analogy is a stretch here, but works ...
6
votes
4answers
297 views
Reason behind “ASCII Adjust” instructions being ASCII and not BCD?
I'm just curious if there was ever other instructions that were more ASCII-centric than the CISC associated ones we're left with now?
Specifically, all the Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) instructions ...
53
votes
3answers
10k views
Why did DOS use dollar-terminated strings?
According to a few tutorials I am seeing, DOS used dollar-terminated strings to write to the terminal. This seems to also be documented here on INT 21H.
AH = 09h - WRITE STRING TO STANDARD OUTPUT
...
2
votes
1answer
93 views
Can't enable list even with “enable run-stop” poke
Well, I've downloaded an old non-English textual adventure, which of course, "for the sake of professionalism" have list disabled. Even after entering pokes for enabling "run-stop/restore" and for ...
1
vote
1answer
131 views
What do the addressing modes imm, dir, and abs mean for the 65c816?
From http://www.6502.org/tutorials/65c816opcodes.html#6.1.1.2
For the CPX instruction:
E0 3-x 3-x imm x.....xx . CPX #$54
E4 2 4-x+w dir x.....xx . CPX $10
EC 3 5-x ...
21
votes
3answers
2k views
Why use repeated STZ instructions with the same operand on the 65C816 for the SNES (Super Nintendo)?
Please consider the code in Super NES Programming/Initialization Tutorial/Snes Init.
Here is an excerpt:
stz $2113 ; Plane 3 scroll x (first 8 bits)
stz $2113 ; Plane 3 scroll x (last ...
12
votes
2answers
412 views
Early 65C816 CPU's SEP and REP instruction are followed by a NOP?
Why did early versions of the 65C816 CPU need a suffixed NOP to every SEP and REP instruction? I saw comments in some source code pointing at this. Looking around in official WDC's documentation and ...
3
votes
1answer
360 views
How does JSR actually work on the 65c816 CPU for the SNES (Super Nintendo)?
Take the following machine code for the 65c816 for the SNES (Super Nintendo):
00000000 ea ea 78 18 fb c2 18 a2 ff 1f 9a 20 fa 80 e2 20 |..x........ ... |
00000010 a9 80 8d 00 21 a9 e0 8d 22 21 ...
13
votes
8answers
751 views
Uses for the halt instruction?
What was the halt instruction in early CPUs such as the Z80 and 8080 used for?
Here's a description of the Z80 instruction:
The HALT instruction suspends CPU operation until a interrupt or reset ...
14
votes
2answers
503 views
What are these tiny TSRs doing?
I've been puzzled by this for a while now. The (very old) game Phantasie comes with three small TSRs that are run prior to running the main game executable. This is the content of the file PH.BAT, ...
1
vote
2answers
186 views
Mysterious things happening to stack when running a debug session
When I run a debug session using Freedos and debug.exe, I get a session like the following. I've added a description of what I saw as annotation on the image. Each step, I've printed out the stack ...
9
votes
1answer
248 views
Can we express the instructions to the Analytical Engine in terms of assembler or machine code?
On a recent trip to the London Science Museum I saw Babbage’s Analytical Engine.
Apparently this had an ALU (or equivalent). I can build an ALU out of logic gates but I can’t conceptualise how to do ...
11
votes
4answers
488 views
Motorola 6809 two stacks design
I'm an assembly newbie, but I'm curious about why the designers of the 6809 choose to use 2 stack in the microprocessor architecture. What is their original intent? The Wikipedia page says "a user ...
33
votes
4answers
10k views
Who is credited for the creation of Assembly Language?
The C Programming Language was originally developed by Dennis Ritchie who also co-designed the Unix operating system with which development of the language was closely intertwined.
Is there a ...
1
vote
2answers
136 views
(How) can I safely use direct addressing for machine code routines on the Epson HX-20?
I am working through the exercises of Lance Leventhal's 6800 Assembly Language Programming on my Epson HX-20. My understanding is that the HX-20's Hitachi 6301 processor is compatible with the ...
0
votes
1answer
272 views
Why did this Hitachi 6301 assembler routine only work once?
I am trying to learn assembler on the various retro machines I own, or am about to buy.
Today I tried converting this 8080 routine (which worked, repeatedly):
| START: | MVI A,0 | 8000 | 3e |
| ...
3
votes
2answers
1k views
Best path to learn C64 assembly [closed]
The amount of tutorials, youtube videos, scanned books on C64 programming is overwhelming.
What materials would you recommend -- and, importantly, in what order! -- to build a path to programming my ...
7
votes
3answers
431 views
Is there a way to link object files for DOS from Linux?
I'm able to use NASM to assemble simple COM files from my modern Linux computer, but how can I create a DOS EXE file while still in Linux?
Specifically, I am interested in a solution that will target ...
11
votes
3answers
557 views
z80 crashes after executing some instructions
I'm building my own Z80 computer but I'm having a very strange problem.
Consider this code:
ld a,0xaa
out (00),a
jp a
That works as expected, outputting 0xaa on port 0x00. Now consider this code:
...
28
votes
2answers
3k views
Why are first four x86 GPRs named in such unintuitive order?
On x86 the first four general-purpose registers are named AX, CX, DX, BX. It would be quite intuitive if their indices (those used in instruction encoding) were in alphabetical order, but instead of ...
6
votes
2answers
375 views
Unsigned addition on the 6502
I am currently playing around with pointer and indirect addressing on the C64 and I encountered a problem with the ADC opcode.
I am trying to increment a number repeatedly and when it overflows (goes ...
7
votes
3answers
1k views
Was Family BASIC for the NES/Famicom powerful enough to create full games and applications?
"Family BASIC or Famicom BASIC is the consumer product for programming
Nintendo's Family Computer video game console of Japan."
wikipedia
I can't seem to find much info about Family BASIC ...
6
votes
4answers
706 views
How were interpreters loaded into computers?
I have been learning about PCs, the first of which was the Altair 8800. So that users could run programs, Micro-Soft created a BASIC interpreter to allow the program to be mapped to processor ...
11
votes
1answer
281 views
Sprites not rendering correctly before $2000
I am currently testing out some stuff in assembly with C64Studio and Vice and I noticed something with odd sprites.
My code starts at $1000 and my sprites at $2000 but when I try to lower the first ...
47
votes
12answers
11k views
How was the first assembler for a new home computer platform written?
How did the 8-bit computers (Spectrum, Commodore, Atari, Amstrad etc) typically "bootstrap" from bare electronics into a platform with a working assembly language and OS?
What I mean: An assembler is ...
4
votes
1answer
276 views
Can someone help me get xROAR to read files? (M6809/TRS-80 ColorComputer)
I implemented a Forth interpreter or the TRS-80 Color Computer (M6809) way back in the 1980s, and I've been trying to figure out how to get it loaded into an emulator to test some parts of the ...
9
votes
2answers
345 views
Is the software available to simulate building a computer from the ground up? For example a system based on the 6502 [closed]
I recently got me head round the basics of how a CPU works after watching Ben Eaters 8bit bread board computer series of internet videos.
Now I am hooked and i want to take my understanding further.
...
10
votes
2answers
677 views
What is the origin of different styles of assembly language mnemonics?
As exemplified in answers to this question (I hope that closed questions that are linked to, don't get purged), the instruction mnemonics in early assembly languages had a 1-to-1 correspondence to the ...
6
votes
2answers
865 views
Why the “jmp” instruction is not working?
I have written the following program in debug.exe:
1165:0100 mov ah, 09
1165:0102 mov dx, 107
1165:0105 int 21
1165:0107 db 'Hello World', 0A, 0D, '$'
1165:0115 jmp 1165:0100
However, when I ...
10
votes
1answer
2k views
How to write directly to video memory in MS-DOS?
The base address for the video memory in MS-DOS is 0xB8000. I am trying to write to this address using debug.exe, but I am getting an error:
1165:0103 mov [b8000],ax
^ Error
-5
votes
4answers
513 views
What is the starting address pointed by Stack Pointer in PDP 11?
To which memory location does the stack pointer point at the beginning of the program in PDP 11? And what can be the end address the SP can point to before overflow occurs?
9
votes
1answer
245 views
How many bits are stored in a memory location in a PDP-11?
PDP-11 is said to be word addressable, which means every data access returns 16-bit data. Suppose I give a read request for address 100 in memory. Will it return 8 bits (LSB) from address 100 and ...
-1
votes
3answers
624 views
Does anyone have the source code of an early program written in Assembly? [closed]
I am interested in looking at the source code of any program that was written in Assembly just about when the Assembly language was invented.
If anyone have a source code for such a program, please ...
9
votes
1answer
113 views
cbm prg studio for the Amstrad
CBM prg studio is brilliant.
I have searched Google for a version (or something similar) for the Amstrad CPC 464, to no avail.
Does anyone know of one?
34
votes
1answer
3k views
What computer system is this from 1984 Doctor Who?
In the 1980s, the popular BBC science fiction series Doctor Who used some real computer system(s) to display impressive (for the time, OK, maybe not!) graphics. They actually ran the software real-...
13
votes
2answers
738 views
How could high level functions with return values map to 6502 assembly? (if at all possible)
What sort of code could be used to substitute a high level function with a return value to a 6502 subroutine? Take this C-like function for example.
byte func(byte a, byte b, byte c) {
d = (a + b)...
11
votes
3answers
559 views
How does 6502 machine code process $ (address) VS #$ (value)?
How does the 6502's machine code process $ vs #$, as in it's assembly language? Does every piece of machine code have an extra byte or something telling to use addresses or values or was it something ...
76
votes
7answers
25k views
Why would a NES game use an undocumented 1-byte or 2-byte NOP in production?
Reading the NESdev wiki page on CPU unofficial opcodes, I see a few games use an undocumented 2-byte NOP instuction in production: Puzznic, F-117A Stealth Fighter, and Infiltrator use $89 #i. Beauty ...
12
votes
3answers
3k views
MSX Assembly/Basic programming documentation
I'd like to try to create software (and maybe simple games) for the MSX standard.
I know I have two ways to do so, either I use MSX Basic or Z80 assembly. I think that Z80 assembly is more powerful ...
16
votes
9answers
4k views
Did early assembly games use hardcoded memory locations?
In the era of C64, Apple][ GS, and SNES, did the games use hardcoded memory locations, or did they let the assembler help them (like modern assemblers)? If yes, how did they manage the memory?
8
votes
3answers
359 views
Arithmetic operations on multiple words on the PDP-8
For the PDP-8 with its strange ISA, I've always wondered what the "standard" (i.e. fastest) way to do arithmetic operations (add, subtract, maybe multiply) on integers consisting of multiple words was....
