First of all, I want to say Hi to everbody here since I'm new to this board - a very interesting board btw...
Maybe my question was answered in previous messages, but as a newbie, I guess I can ask it again only once :confused:
Will I benefit to start programming assembly programs in DOS mode, or will I loose too much precious time on that ?
I'm not affraid of real hard stuff; I already used debug a while ago, and I know a bit about the segment:offset hell...
I've also programmed some things in VB, C/C++ (so I'm not completely new to programming), but I feel the need to really understand what my computer do. That's the main reason for me to learn some IA-32 assembly.
I've started reading some PDF's about IA-32, downloaded MASM32, done some tutes from this great site... but I feel like I'm learning many things without particular order :(
Anybody have an opinion on "where to start" ?
Maybe my question was answered in previous messages, but as a newbie, I guess I can ask it again only once :confused:
Will I benefit to start programming assembly programs in DOS mode, or will I loose too much precious time on that ?
I'm not affraid of real hard stuff; I already used debug a while ago, and I know a bit about the segment:offset hell...
I've also programmed some things in VB, C/C++ (so I'm not completely new to programming), but I feel the need to really understand what my computer do. That's the main reason for me to learn some IA-32 assembly.
I've started reading some PDF's about IA-32, downloaded MASM32, done some tutes from this great site... but I feel like I'm learning many things without particular order :(
Anybody have an opinion on "where to start" ?
Sounds like your on the right track to me...
Keep up the MASM work if you have other experience in programming. Its truely quite simple to learm MASM. The trick is balancing WINDOWS into the mix, and realizing the difference.
Stay within Iz's first 10 or so tuts untill you cant take it now more, and move on from there. As well if you havent already, check out Thomas' Intro to ASM tutorials, Here....
Real trick to it all is keep coding up something new that make you wonder "how could i do this...", no matter how dumb it is. I have 3 "projects" directories at this point, and they are more or less a chronological progress as i learn more things.. (and man the Directory #1 looks pretty weak to be anything useful, but at the time it was all new to me and its the only way you can move ahead).
Good Luck (from Ottawa)
NaN
Keep up the MASM work if you have other experience in programming. Its truely quite simple to learm MASM. The trick is balancing WINDOWS into the mix, and realizing the difference.
Stay within Iz's first 10 or so tuts untill you cant take it now more, and move on from there. As well if you havent already, check out Thomas' Intro to ASM tutorials, Here....
Real trick to it all is keep coding up something new that make you wonder "how could i do this...", no matter how dumb it is. I have 3 "projects" directories at this point, and they are more or less a chronological progress as i learn more things.. (and man the Directory #1 looks pretty weak to be anything useful, but at the time it was all new to me and its the only way you can move ahead).
Good Luck (from Ottawa)
NaN
Hi dotCODE,
Glad to see you have seen the light..
I've found that by just picking a particular topic and twisting it in different ways is quite fun. What I mean is rather plan try a whole App at once think of an idea for a project , what features you would like , then just code in snippets. After a week or two you're going to have a lot of a little bits of that without too much trouble you should be able to stir together. But the thing I found helpful is to get the little bits right and working rather than just throwing a whole lot of stuff together.
Anyway remember to have fun and we are all here to help
Bye.
Glad to see you have seen the light..
I've found that by just picking a particular topic and twisting it in different ways is quite fun. What I mean is rather plan try a whole App at once think of an idea for a project , what features you would like , then just code in snippets. After a week or two you're going to have a lot of a little bits of that without too much trouble you should be able to stir together. But the thing I found helpful is to get the little bits right and working rather than just throwing a whole lot of stuff together.
Anyway remember to have fun and we are all here to help
Bye.
Stay away from dos coding, it will bring no benefits - just headaches.
It's true that if you want to know "what is going on", you will have
to learn a lot of different bits and pieces. For example, to understand
why all (well, most) windows apps load to 0400000h, you'll have to
read up on paging, which will lead you down further roads, etc etc etc. :).
There are a lot of topics like this you can sort of ignore when programming
win32asm, but they are pretty interesting...
It's true that if you want to know "what is going on", you will have
to learn a lot of different bits and pieces. For example, to understand
why all (well, most) windows apps load to 0400000h, you'll have to
read up on paging, which will lead you down further roads, etc etc etc. :).
There are a lot of topics like this you can sort of ignore when programming
win32asm, but they are pretty interesting...
dotCODE,
pretty much as the other guys have said, learn assembler in small pieces. Its good to properly understand the data sizes and the matching register sizes, start with the basic instructions that are simple and make sense, MOV, INC, DEC, CMP and all of the simple ones that are used the most.
Have a look at the help file in MASM32 called ASMINTRO.HLP, it will help you in the very basic stuff. Iczelions tutorials are very good and there is a lot of example code in MASM32 to play with.
A toy in MASM32 should be useful to you when experimenting with bits and pieces. Prostart is a prototyping tool that creates front ends quickly so you can test out ideas.
Don't be afraid to ask questions in here, thats what we are here for. I have asked more silly questions in my time than most so you don't have to worry about being hassled about stuff that we have all asked at one time or another.
Regards,
hutch@pbq.com.au
pretty much as the other guys have said, learn assembler in small pieces. Its good to properly understand the data sizes and the matching register sizes, start with the basic instructions that are simple and make sense, MOV, INC, DEC, CMP and all of the simple ones that are used the most.
Have a look at the help file in MASM32 called ASMINTRO.HLP, it will help you in the very basic stuff. Iczelions tutorials are very good and there is a lot of example code in MASM32 to play with.
A toy in MASM32 should be useful to you when experimenting with bits and pieces. Prostart is a prototyping tool that creates front ends quickly so you can test out ideas.
Don't be afraid to ask questions in here, thats what we are here for. I have asked more silly questions in my time than most so you don't have to worry about being hassled about stuff that we have all asked at one time or another.
Regards,
hutch@pbq.com.au
Thanks for the greetings and all the replies; very appreciated :)
...and I just saw my "segment : offset" in my previous post... damn smilies :grin:
...and I just saw my "segment : offset" in my previous post... damn smilies :grin: