EDIT: this is in completely the wrong forum... ack... there wouldn't be a way to move it to main would there?
Okay, i've been farten around w/ tryin to learn assembly for a while, and i've found a good deal of decent win32 asm tutorials and thats all fine and dandy. But it seems to me that when i do tutorials I end up doing an awful lot of cutting and pasting, and not so much learning. And since I'm still very much at the "okay, whats 'lea' again?" stage, cutting and pasting those big-ole WinProcs seems to be gettin me a whole lotta nowhere.
So i've got it in my head that the best way to start may be w/ 16bit, just enough to learn most of the registers, and stuff like that. Ideally make a "skeleton program" or two (to easily test and fiddle w/ whatever register or op i happen to be interested in at any given time).
so the question is: am i totally out of my gourd? Is it going to do me any good? (i.e. are the differences between 16bit & 32bit THAT significant, that learning 16bit first wouldn't help?)
alternatively: is it possible to do Win32 command line programs without using WinProcs and all that wonderful goodness?
thanks in a advance.
-William
Okay, i've been farten around w/ tryin to learn assembly for a while, and i've found a good deal of decent win32 asm tutorials and thats all fine and dandy. But it seems to me that when i do tutorials I end up doing an awful lot of cutting and pasting, and not so much learning. And since I'm still very much at the "okay, whats 'lea' again?" stage, cutting and pasting those big-ole WinProcs seems to be gettin me a whole lotta nowhere.
So i've got it in my head that the best way to start may be w/ 16bit, just enough to learn most of the registers, and stuff like that. Ideally make a "skeleton program" or two (to easily test and fiddle w/ whatever register or op i happen to be interested in at any given time).
so the question is: am i totally out of my gourd? Is it going to do me any good? (i.e. are the differences between 16bit & 32bit THAT significant, that learning 16bit first wouldn't help?)
alternatively: is it possible to do Win32 command line programs without using WinProcs and all that wonderful goodness?
thanks in a advance.
-William
is it possible to do Win32 command line programs without using WinProcs and all that wonderful goodness?
Yes. There's something called Win32 console mode programs which look like a DOS box and can use console input/output but can still use all the normal Windows API calls. It's pretty easy, actually I think it's easier to start with then WinProcs and all that. Masm32 contains an example in the \masm32\EXAMPLE3\TEXTIO folder.
If you want to see a Win32 console program in action, assemble any MASM program. ml.exe & link.exe are good examples :)
okay... thats pretty much what I was after right there...
thanks man...
(though the masocistic part of me still gazes longingly @ 16bit asm... oh well... i'll play w/ that later :D)
thanks man...
(though the masocistic part of me still gazes longingly @ 16bit asm... oh well... i'll play w/ that later :D)
There is the opcodes help file in masm32 that lists you can use to look up opcodes your not sure of. If you want to go with 16 bit assembly get The art of assembly. I don't you need to know 16 bit assembly to master win32 assembly but it's up to you.
Please DON'T DON'T try to do 16 bit assembler.
It's about a billion times harder then 32 bit.
In 32 bit, any register can access any valid memory location. In 16 bit, you get 64K segments, and need track each one individually.
It's not that assembly is so hard, its windows that's tough.
It's about a billion times harder then 32 bit.
In 32 bit, any register can access any valid memory location. In 16 bit, you get 64K segments, and need track each one individually.
It's not that assembly is so hard, its windows that's tough.
ouch... that sounds unpleasant. Thanks for the help guys. And thanks for the move whoever did that.