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I started out with Z80 and 6809 machine code, there were no assemblers available to me back then. I wrote my first code like this around 40 years ago which was a ROM extension for Basic to control sound and speech hardware. Thinking back and comparing to the likes of modern assemblers or VS I have no idea how I managed it!
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Private Dobbs wrote: Thinking back and comparing to the likes of modern assemblers or VS I have no idea how I managed it!
Maybe you read Dr. Dobbs Journal?  I just couldn't help notice that you are Private Dobbs. You wouldn't happen to be a doctor in your spare time, would you? 
There was so little documentation back then. It's amazing that devs were able to do the things they did. Very cool story.
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Alas not a doctor although at 18 I wanted to be one. However I am currently working on a medical app if that counts
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When I wrote my first assembler program 25+years ago, I was so proud of being able to speak the computer's "native" language ! Like you could interact directly with its perception of things without the filters of the high level languages.
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Rage wrote: When I wrote my first assembler program 25+years ago, I was so proud of being able to speak the computer's "native" language
Yeah I always remember Bill Gates quote about when they were controlling a PDP-8 or PDP-11 from his school. Then they were in high school and working with a large corporation and writing code for them. He said something like, "It was amazing that we were high school students and we were able to control this machine that was worth millions $$$ that very few adults could even understand and control." It's very true.
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Strangely, x86/x64 is one of the few processors that I've used that I haven't written assembly for... Z80, 68000, VAX, ARM, various other embedded platforms, but never for any PC processors...
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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Stuart Dootson wrote: Strangely, x86/x64 is one of the few processors that I've used that I haven't written assembly for..
That is interesting. I guess it makes sense too because x86/x64 are used in PCs and there are a whole host of other tools to use to develop on those platforms. Meanwhile those other ones you mention probably don't have as many dev tools. Interesting. 
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ld hl, 3c00h
l1: ld a, (hl)
xor a, 0BFh
ld (hl), a
inx hx
ld a, h
cmp 40h
jne l1
ret
My first assembler subroutine, in Z-80assembler, for the TRS-80. First written circa 1979 and reprinted from memory. Now the tricky part:
21 00 3C
76
EE BF
77
23
7C
FE 40
20 F5
C9
That's my best guess to the machine codes for that. (It steps through the monochrome graphics screen, inverting the bit, changing black->white, white->black on the image.)
UPDATE: I just googled it. The correct machine code would be:
21 00 3C
7E ; funny thing. I wrote 7E on the scrap paper I figured it out on, then wrote 76 here.
EE BF
77
23
7C
FE 40
20 F3 ; relative jump starts counting from the address of NEXT op code.
C9
Truth,
James
modified 10-Feb-21 10:40am.
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Takes me back. In the '80s, if you wanted something fast, you did it in assembly language. MASM in those days. I wrote *a lot* of it. I knew this one company who wrote an entire accounting system in it, which was pretty impressive - very fast and utterly obsolete as soon as Windows 3.1 died. I love assembly language: there's a purity to it which you don't find anywhere else.
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Dan Sutton wrote: utterly obsolete as soon as Windows 3.1 died.
Windows 3.1 never died. It just faded away. 
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unlike other windows os that stop working on newer hardware (there is probably some afforest time trigger) win3.1 still runs without problems on new machines.
at least it was running the last time i checked, intel dual core.
windows 95 started making trouble on pentium 2/3 agp slot machines.
you could hardly run windows 2000 on anything newer than lga775 and now the time cycle is set to minimal.
this years machines run only on this years version of win 10. give or take a year or two max.
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I have done a small(ish) ammount of 80X86 assembly when I was at Uni to get a graphics system working always wanted to go down the rabbit hole could never find the time or the book, I have ordered it just need some time now. When you are unemployed and have the time I never have the money for these things. Need to save more (or buy stuff to keep occupied while you can!!)
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I used to write graphics routines in the late 90s while at uni using TASM (Turbo Assembler). Good old INT13 on Intel x86.
Inline ASM in Turbo Pascal was also handy.
I implemented a Bresenham line algorithm from C and extracted ROM fonts for pretty graphics.
I wrote a system that used INT1C to perform crude TDM multitasking in DOS. Not sure where i found that gem.
I still have Peter Norton's book somewhere too. That low level disk access!
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If you are melancholy, are you really good at herding fruit?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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You might be sad because you cantaloupe.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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The thought gives me gooseberries.
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It means that the puppies are melon-collie babies.
It also means that you need to air your jokes out more often - they're getting stale...
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
modified 9-Feb-21 12:21pm.
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Does banana some women is no longer welcome? I know that large simians prefer to sleep on apricots, and occasionally, a musician will have perfect peach, but I corn not otherwise answer your inquiry.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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What day is this?
Melancholy? No melons in Europe, so the joke fails a bit here.
Also, just a wimps' idea of depression.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Quote: With a melon?!
Who holds the goose?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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