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From: bd@zyx.UUCP (Bjorn Danielsson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Student friendly assemblers
Message-ID: <574@zyx.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-May-87 20:54:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: zyx.574
Posted: Wed May 20 20:54:43 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 23-May-87 14:33:36 EDT
References: <351@aucs.UUCP> <588@maccs.UUCP> <234@brandx.rutgers.edu> <593@maccs.UUCP> <6725@mimsy.UUCP> <663@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Reply-To: bd@zyx.UUCP (Bjorn Danielsson)
Organization: ZYX Sweden AB, Stockholm
Lines: 26

In article <663@boulder.Colorado.EDU> cdash@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Charles Shub) writes:
>The biggest problem students, especially sophmores, face is that they
>need simplicity!!!! That means either some simple system calls like
>INCHWL on TOPS-20 assembler (input character, wait for line feed before
>returning) or macros (see almost any assembly text book) like read_w to
>read in word length integers. Students need to be able to write 20 to 30
>line programs that do something reasonably useful.
> [ deleted ]

Actually, INCHWL is a TOPS-10 monitor call. On TOPS-20 you would be better
off using a native TOPS-20 system call such as PBIN, TEXTI, or COMND.
Anyway, assembly language isn't different from any other language in that
a good programming environment makes a big difference. That includes a
good editor (EMACS), a good macro assembler (MIDAS or MACRO-10), a nice
and friendly operating system (TOPS-20), and a good debugger (DDT).
The processor architecture itself is of course also very important, and
the PDP-10 was indeed a well-designed processor (and the KL-10 still is,
except for a few kludges).

On Unix everything can be done in C, and that's a big improvement.
But when you *do* need assembly language, the right tools are missing.
"as" isn't a language processor, it's just a back-end for "cc".
And "DDT" isn't there when you need it.

-- 
Bjorn Danielsson, ZYX, +46 8 653205, ...mcvax!enea!zyx!bd