Assembly Language Course Research Articles

Research on the Teaching Reform of ��Assembly Language and Microcomputer Technology�� Course under the Background of Ideological and Political Theory Guidance

Research on the Teaching Reform of ��Assembly Language and Microcomputer Technology�� Course under the Background of Ideological and Political Theory Guidance

A teaching approach for bridging the gap between low‐level and high‐level programming using assembly language learning for small microcontrollers

AbstractAssembly language programming has been for long used as a teaching tool for computer systems. However, this approach suffers from the difficulties that are inherent to its low‐level instructions. The present teaching approach merges the assembly language course with microcomputers technology by means of structured pseudo‐coding. The method is based on a classification of the assembly instructions in a novel inventory, which is subsequently used for the composition of the basic high‐level programming possibilities, thus overcoming the limited assembly abilities. The proposed methodology aims at helping the students to make the parallelization between the assembly language programming for 8‐bit microcontrollers and a higher level programming. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 19: 525–537, 2011

Division by integers using multiplication

Students are introduced to the concepts surrounding processor speed and computing cycles beginning in CS0 courses through assembly language and computer architecture courses and beyond. Students ar...

A non-traditonal approach to an assembly language course

Teaching assembly language is difficult at best. Most small schools and many larger ones use PC's in their labs. The method used by most texts focusing on the Intel 8x86 processor is becoming less ...

Teaching assembly language without using (as much) assembly language

According to the MIT Jargon Dictionary, C is often described, with a mixture of fondness and disdain varying according to the speaker, as 'a language that combines all the elegance and power of assembly language with all the readability and maintainability of assembly language. ' [E] This suggests that one should be able to use C, or something like it, to teach many (if not most) of the concepts covered in an assembly language course. This paper describes one such approach, using a limited version of Java. It describes how using such a language can ease the introduction of assembly language concepts due to the language being both more forgiving of, and more familiar to, the students. Assembly language concepts amenable to this approach are detailed, as are those that are not.

Programming multi-stack structures in an assembly language course

Computer concepts utilizing a new design or architecture are often too sophisticated for the majority of lower level undergraduates. This paper presents a methodology for introducing a model of a m...

Debugging

We conducted a study to demonstrate that formal training in debugging helps students develop skills in diagnosing and removing defects from computer programs. To accomplish this goal in an assembly language course, we designed multiple activities to enhance students' debugging skills. These activities included debugging exercises, debugging logs, development logs and reflective memos, and collaborative assignments. In a previous paper, we reported positive qualitative results. Students agreed that formal debugging training enhanced their debugging skills. In this paper, we present positive quantitative results that support our previous qualitative results. Students who completed the optional debugging exercises spent significantly less time on debugging their programs than those who did not. Furthermore, we develop a model of debugging abilities and habits based on students' comments in their debugging logs, development logs, reflective memos, and evaluation surveys. Students and educators could use the model to diagnose students' current debugging skills and take actions to enhance their skills.

Assembly language through the Java virtual machine

Student understanding of choices and design decisions about instruction formats, addressing, instruction types, and flow of control is developed through the assembly level. We propose the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) as the architecture for teaching assembly language. The paper describes how to use the JVM as a teaching tool for a sophomore level Assembly Language and Computer Architecture course.

Teaching of assembly language as a laboratory science

This paper describes our experience with the implementation of laboratories associated with our undergraduate computer science courses. The beginning assembly language course was chosen as our first experiment with this concept for several reasons. Acquisition of new equipment necessitated reorganization of the course in any case, and the philosophy of learning by experimentation was most easily implemented in a subject "close to the hardware".The concept of a supervised lab in computer science, based on those used in the physical and natural sciences, is relatively new. Teaching assembly language in an assigned, supervised laboratory setting has overwhelming advantages over the more traditional lecture and open lab method. In addition to the obvious guaranteed computer time, the immediate availability of help allows much more material to be covered. Student and faculty acceptance of the labs has been uniformly enthusiastic. So much so, that all of our programming-intensive courses are now scheduled with labs. This paper presents descriptions of the original lab facility itself, later improvements to the facility, the course organization, and examination procedures. It concludes with some general observations and suggestions based on our experience.

Examining compiled code

The use of annotated listings of compiler-generated code has the potential to make teaching more effective in several different courses. We consider the production of such listings for several popular compilers and computer systems, including Turbo Pascal on MS-DOS machines and Pascal on Ultrix and VMS systems. The usefulness of these listings in assembly language, computer organization/architecture, and compiler courses, as well as introductory courses, is also considered.

Assembly language courses in transition

Although the CS 3 course of the ACM Curriculum '78 was defined almost a decade ago, the broader perspectives that are desired for that course have not been present in many undergraduate programs. Only recently has the pivotal role of this course begun to attract the attention of computer science faculties. This development is prompted by the increasing awareness in our profession of the need to convey basic principles along with programming skills in introductory courses, and is accompanied by the increasing availability of more well-rounded textbooks. This paper describes the transition at Clemson University from a skills-oriented “assembly language course” to a principles-oriented “introduction to computer systems” course. The course that has resulted will better prepare students for subsequent studies in languages, operating systems, and applications support software.

Conversion of a PDP-11/40 assembler and simulator from mainframe Pascal to Ada on IBM PC microcomputers

The assembly language course at Georgia State University is taught using a PDP-11/40 Assembler and Simulator, written in Pascal, running on a Sperry UNIVAC mainframe. In the past two years most of the computer science program has been switched to IBM PC compatible microcomputers. This, coupled with the fact that the UNIVAC system is about to be retired, motivated us to translate the PDP-11/40 system to the microcomputers. The translation is from the mainframe Pascal version to Ada for the PC's. The use of the assembler and simulator, the rationale for the use of Ada, and the problems encountered in the translation are all discussed.

A course project to design and implement the kernel of a real-time operating system

There is a desperate lack of training in real-time programming in the computer science curriculum. At best, students may write an interrupt driven program in an assembly language course. As a result, a majority of real-time programming in industry is done by enginers who understand hardware but have little training in program development for complex software systems. This paper describes a course project that can be used in an operating systems course or a course in real-time software design. The project development proceeds from the core of a real-time kernel outward to user calls to the kernel. The major components of this project are: the underlying data structures, the scheduler, input and output device drivers, programmer's interfaces to the system, and a series of user programs exercising the system. The original course was developed for an industrial environment where it proved to be quite successful. The project has been adapted for for use both in an operating systems course and a special topics course in real-time programming.

Structured Assembly language in VAX-11 MACRO

For several years, the introductory assembly language course at Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne has used “structured” assembly language on an IBM System 370. A later course makes use of VAX-11 MACRO assembly language on a VAX 11/780. This paper shows how the major constructs for structured programming may be implemented in VAX-11 MACRO. The scheme involves assembly language templates for each of the constructs, a standard labeling scheme, and a commenting method which reflects the structure of the program.

BETWEEN THE BOOKENDS

Book reviewed in this article:SHIPBOARD ANTENNAS, by Preston LawOBSERVER'S DIRECTORY OF ROYAL NAVAL SUBMARINES, 1901–1982 by P. CockerAN ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE COURSE by Mark E. Fohl

Animations of computers as teaching aids

This paper discusses several programs which are used as teaching aids for teaching computer science students. The programs are animations of the internal workings of a central processing unit. They should be particularly useful in assembly language and computer organization courses or to give introductory students a more tangible example of what is going on inside the computer. The animation techniques use only the capabilities of common dumb conversational computer terminals and can easily be implemented on many different computer systems.

BETWEEN THE BOOKENDS

An Assembly Language Course; by Mark E. FohlHandbook of Multiphase Systems; edited by Gad HetsroniThe ARRL Antenna Book (14th Edition) by the Staff of the American Radio Relay Leagu“Anatomy of the Ship: The Aircraft Carrier Intrepid,” by John Roberts

The suitability of the VAX for a course in assembly language

This paper describes the assembly language course we teach, using a Digital Equipment Corporation VAX-11/780 minicomputer, in which structured programming is stressed. It also discusses the relative merits and disadvantages of choosing the VAX as the computer to be used in such a course. The first section of the paper provides a quick survey of the VAX architecture. The second describes our course in assembly language, including our method of structuring assembly language programs. The final section details some of the positive and negative aspects we discovered in using the VAX in our course.

A laboratory for a computers and programming course

The computer organization and assembly language course is part of most of computer science undergraduate curricula. With the advance of microcomputers into small business and engineering firms even management information systems and engineering majors are enrolling in this course. The work described here began in 1978 to upgrade this sophomore course in computer fundamentals. The goal was to make the small computer an integral part of the course's laboratory. The task was to create a laboratory providing hands-on computing to reinforce concepts in the areas of 1. computer organization, assembly language programming, and architecture; 2. computer operation; 3. hardware/software interfaces; and 4. operating systems. To accomplish these goals, the three phases of the project were in hardware, software, and curriculum development. Before the project began, the course reflected the outline of curriculum course B2 [1]. The topics covered included the assembly process with one and two pass assemblers; the use of absolute and linking loaders; computer architectural details of register, memory, and CPU organization; addressing schemes; and input/output programming. Although these topics are satisfactory, our methods of teaching them were not. We used the University's main computer, the Xerox Sigma 7, for the laboratory portion of the course. The Sigma 7's operating system shielded the student from the computer architecture. The system posed difficulties of varying degrees in the presentation of most of the topics and prevented any real understanding of input/output programming. Attempts to simulate input/output for the students met with unenthusiastic responses.