Related to ASM

[steve ravet]

Shannen Durphey wrote:
> 
> Would learning assembly from a book for the x86 processors provide
> good base for disassembly work that will be done here, especially the
> 68HC11?

Not really.  There are few if any similarities between x86 and 6811.  If
you have to learn assembly, might as well start with 6811.  X86 will
show you what assembly "feels like", but the architecture is completely
different.

> 
> Am I correct in thinking that a high level language provides a way to
> make a program, but is worthless without a compiler, and that
> compilers are processor specific?

Yes.  The compiler has to support your processor to be of any use.

> 
> And one more question.  Can a machine language program be disassembled
> into more than one high level language?  Hope I'm getting the jargon
> right.

Ummm....   the bytes in the image (machine code) can be easily
disassembled into assembly language by a program.  If it was originally
written in C (for example) a skilled person could look at the assembly
code and probably come up with something resembling the original C, but
it's not the kind of thing that a program would do automatically.

My guess (without looking at any code), given constraints on program
size and execution speed, is that the ECMs we are interested in were
programmed directly in assembly.  Current ECMs may use faster processors
and more memory and be programmed in C or something, but it seems likely
that C3 and P4 were assembly only.

--steve


> 
> Remember, it's still cold out and the grasshopper may not be very
> quick yet.
> Shannen

-- 
Steve Ravet
steve.ravet at arm.com
Advanced Risc Machines, Inc.
www.arm.com