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From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.edu,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Teaching Assembler on VAX (BSD 4.3)
Message-ID: <1005@killer.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Jun-87 02:14:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: killer.1005
Posted: Tue Jun 16 02:14:31 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jun-87 01:13:12 EDT
References: <1762@megaron.arizona.edu>
Organization: Bayou Telecommunications
Lines: 32
Xref: mnetor comp.unix.questions:2916 comp.edu:466 comp.lang.misc:463

in article <1762@megaron.arizona.edu>, debray@arizona.edu (Saumya Debray) says:
> In article <965@killer.UUCP>, elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) writes:
>> I've seen juniors in CS who program in PL/1 or "C" (depending on machine
>> used), who don't know the fogiest thing about what goes on at a lower level.
>> Most of them have a VERY hard time figuring out what an operating system
>> is, because while they've READ about computer architecture, they've never
>> EXPERIENCED computer architecture. Experience which programming in assembly
>> language gives you, real quick.
>.  The problem is that when tinkering
> with assembly language, it's all too easy to miss the forest for the trees.
> 
>. One might argue that solving the electron flow
> equations for a p-n junction would give me a lot of insight into the
> workings of a VLSI chip, but I'm afraid most of us were too overwhelmed by
> the level of detail to get a feel for the big picture.

So do it on a machine on which there IS no level of detail....

Programming a Commodore 64 in assembly language is hardly "immersing the
person in details"... there just ain't much there to be called a detail! 

The point is for people to learn what basic architecture such as "what is
memory?", "what is a machine language instruction", and "what is an operating
system". On a machine with memory-mapped screen, for example, you might tell
the students to "write our own chrout routine to print a character to the
screen", just to let'em know that the "chrout" routine isn't magic... it's
something that some programmer, somewhere, wrote.
--
Eric Green   elg%usl.CSNET     CS student, University of SW Louisiana
{cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg      Apprentice Haquer, Bayou Telecommunications
Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191      BBS phone #: 318-984-3854  300/1200 baud
Lafayette, LA 70509            I disclaim my existence, and yours, too.