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DPRG: Assembler (was Real good riddle.)

Subject: DPRG: Assembler (was Real good riddle.)
From: Kipton Moravec kmoravec at airmail.net
Date: Sat Jul 26 22:18:18 CDT 1997

droid at bellatlantic.net wrote:
> [SNIP]
> The thing is...I don't know a thing about the assembler. I have seen some
> example codes and to tell you the truth,,,this thing looks like
> someone designed it while drinking the rest of his cappucino late at
> night. I know that the PBasic wil compile the code for me but I can't run
> away from it. I mean it will get me sooner or later. I can program in
> other languages tough :
> CBM Basic
> Apple II Applesoft Basic
> Qbasic
> Boland C
> Borland Turbo C++ (v 3.0 for DOS)
> Borland Turbo Pascal 7.0(for DOS)
> All of these programming languages do make sense, maybe that's becasue
> they are sort of human soun'a'like. Well, in the assembler it looks
> rather differnt, you have all these registers, accumulators, and whole
> lot of other stuff.
My first language was FORTRAN IV (1974), then COBOL (1975), then PL1
(1978), then IBM 360 Assembler (1979). (Damn, am I old or what!) COBOL
is more readable

In C:
PAY = Hourly_Rate * Hours_Worked;

Multiply Hourly_Rate by Hours_Worked giving PAY;

But I digress....

Going from those languages to assembler is much more difficult than
going from C to assembler. Why? Because C was designed to map nearly 1
to 1 with PDP-8 Assembler.  Why is C the only language with ++ or --?
(Postincrement, preincrement, postdecrement, predecrement) because the
assembler had an increment (INC) and decrement (DEC) command, and since
the value was in a register already, you might as well take advantage of

For example, assume you had a line of C

ANS = A + B++;

In C it is pretty simple. You are telling the computer to go out and get
the values from the memory locations designated A and B, add the values,
put the answer in the memory location ANS, increment the value of B and
store it back in memory (so it will be incremented next time you get
it). In assembler, each step is it's own command. 

     LD      R0, A   ; Take the value in memory location A 
                     ; and put it in register 0 (R0)
     LD      R1, B   ; Take the value in memory location B
                     ; and put it in register 1 (R1)
     ADD     R0, R1  ; Add the values of register 0, and 
                     ; register 1, and put the results in 
                     ; register 0.  (This wipes out the copy of
                     ; A that was in the register)
     STO     ANS,R0  ; Take the contents of register 0 and store it
                     ; in the memory location ANS.
     INC     R1      ; Add 1 to the value in R1.
     STO     B, R1   ; Store the contents of register 1 in 
                     ; the memory location B

This is pretty simple if the ADD is an integer add, and A and B are the
same precision as the register, and the add does not overflow a
register.  <grin>.  The compiler worries about all of that for you, when
it makes the conversion from C to assembler.

Depending on the project, and what I am trying to accomplish, sometimes,
I prefer assembler!  If the project is small, and speed is important or
I am manipulating hardware, I usually prefer assembler. If I have to
worry about writing to the screen, and deal with user input I will NOT
use assembler. Assembler should be used if you want to take advantage of
the special features of the processor or controller.  If you want to be
generic, then use a higher level language.  

Usually in robotics, we want to wring every bit of power out of our
processor, and we are manipulating the robot hardware.  In 8051
Assembler, I can set or clear a bit (or change one output wire.)

     SET P0.1

This takes the line number 1 on port 0 and raises it to a High or logic
level 1.  I can not do that in C. In C I have to work with the whole

     P0value = P0value || 0b00000010;

That translates to 
     LD R0,P0value  ;Load the values from the memory location P0value
     OR  R0,0b00000010 ; Perform a Logical Or operation on 
                      ; R0 and the immediate binary value, and  
                      ; put the results in R0.
     STO P0value, RO  ; store the value in the memory mapped location.

By using assembler, in this case I am 3x faster.  I have been told, that
by using a highly optimized compiler, you can get about 1.1x slower in a
high level language than by writing in assembler.  Unfortunately, we can
not afford highly optimized compilers, so assembler is usually closer to
twice as fast, and sometimes can be as much as 10x faster, in special

> Since I want to, well I should say I HAVE to learn the assembler, I
> believe that PIC chip should not be TOO complicated and I hope that it
> will allow me to learn a WHOLE lot about the guts of teh whole
> chip(Someone told me that to be efficient or even programm at all in the
> assembler you HAVE to know the guts of a chip...kind of makes sense to
> me... :(   )
Yup, You need to learn the "guts of the chip".  Fortunately, the guts in
these types of processors are not very complicated.  It is very easy to
understand microcontroller guts because they are simple. You should pick
it up pretty fast.

> [snip bunch of stuff about books]
As far as I am concerned, you can't have too many books. (Until you run
out of book shelves.) :) I have 5 books on the 8051 processor.  Some
books explain different parts of the processor better.  If I am working
on the serial port, I go to the book on the shelf that explains the
serial port the best.  They all talk about the serial port, but one may
give better examples, which makes me go faster. 

> And another Q.
> I know that Borland C and C++ (for DOS) have something called IDE
> compiler..if I'm not mistaken that means that the whole thing is
> integrated in single editor. Every assembler I have seen on the WWW is
> old style ...which means the you write your programm with the DOS EDIT
> and then compile it back in DOS and all...is there an assembler for the
> microcontrollers which would look similar to the C or C++ (not commands
> of course, DUHHHH, the feel and integration where you can write your
> program in the on window then press button and thing compiles it)

In general, NO.  At, least not for what we can afford.  I do not know
about the PIC, but in general, the reason the Borland has the IDE is
because you are running on the same computer you are editing and
compiling on.  Your PC does not have a PIC in it. If you spend your
bucks, and get an in-circuit emulater, then you have a chance to get an
integrated environment.  Expect to spend $1000 to $5000 for the whole
package, in-circuit emulator, integrated C, Assembler, and editor. 

The rest of us get evaluation boards, edit the program, compile it, link
it, download it into the evaluation board, and run it, and see what
happens.  Once it works, we load the program into an EPROM. 

Hope this helps you understand, better.



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