Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!nop
From: nop@cup.portal.com (Randy G Jouett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Assembly Language books
Message-ID: <12408@cup.portal.com>
Date: 10 Dec 88 05:20:00 GMT
References: <3193@ingr.UUCP>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 61


In some article Steve Crooks asked:
>I'd like people's opinions on Amiga assembly language books.  The two that
>I know of are _Amiga Machine Language_ published by Abacus and 
>_Amiga Machine Language Programming Guide_ published by Compute.

>Questions:

>1) Are there any others?

	A must have:  _680x0 -- Programming by Example_ , SAMS.
It covers the entire 68K family -- get it.

>2) Are they any good?

	I'm not sure about the Compute book, but keep away from the Abacus
book!!!!!!!!! First off, the author runs, no, flys through the instruction
set like a bat-out-of-hell -- strike one. Next, almost every single example
goes straight to the hardware (I wonder what country this book was written
in? :> ) -- strike two. And last, but FAR from least, the english translation
of this book (translated from German, evidently) was probably done by the
German author;that is, it's 100% broken, hard to read english the whole way
through. So, as any old home-town ump might say, "Strike three -- your outta
there!"

>3) What is their general content?

	The Abacus-at-it book covers most everything, but leaves much to be
desired in the graphics arenna.

>4) What do you like about them?

	The Abacus book has a pretty nice appendix that has all of the
LVO's (Library Vector Offset) and their register usage in one easy to find
area. That is the only thing I like about the book -- PERIOD!

>5) What do you dislike about them?

	See answer to question 2

>6) Which one would you recommend?

	Well, you already know my views about the Abacus book, and I
haven't looked at the Compute book, so I'll let someone else comment
on this.

>7) Have they even been published yet?

	Abacus book -- yes.

>8) Is there anything else I should know?

	That about covers it.


>Either post to the net, or send email and I'll summarize.

	Everyone needs to hear about the failings of the Abacus
book, as far as I'm concerned.

>Thanks,