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From: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Assembly Language
Message-ID: <2862@phri.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Aug-87 20:57:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: phri.2862
Posted: Wed Aug 19 20:57:05 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Aug-87 06:07:28 EDT
References: <892@edge.UUCP> <7359@think.UUCP> <4180@ncoast.UUCP> <309@wrs.UUCP>
Reply-To: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY)
Lines: 19

In article <309@wrs.UUCP> dg@wrs.UUCP (David Goodenough) describes how
he first writes his assembler code in C, then hand translates it into
assembler and keeps the C source around in the assembler source file as
comments.

	When I took my first microprocessor course, we worked with 6800s,
into which you had to key the machine code in hex.  Like David, I found the
best way to get the assembler code written was to write it first in
simplish C and then hand-compile it.  The problem with this approach is
that it removes the major incentive to write assembler these days; to
fine-tune that very small fraction of your code that runs the most, or to
do things that you just can't do in C (like executing a bus reset or
wait-for-interrupt instruction).  Once you start the fine tuning process,
the original C code doesn't correspond to the assembler on a one-to-one, or
even one-to-many basis anymore.
-- 
Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016