On those small machines you often lacked an assembler and coded in hex On Mon, Dec 30, 2024, 19:43 Phil Smith III <li...@akphs.com> wrote:
> (Cross-posted to IBM-MAIN, IBMVM, and the IBM assembler list) > > I just finished a book, The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak, which I > quite enjoyed. Part of the plot involves characters writing code on a > Commodore 64, including some "machine code". It seemed clear from the > description that they meant what I'd call assembler; some Googling quickly > found https://project64.c64.org/Software/mlcom.pdf, a guide to such > programming for the C64 which definitely seems to blur the terms. > > I wrote the author, who cheerfully confirmed that yes, they're used > interchangeably in that world. > > Which led me to wonder several things: > 1. Which platforms call it assembler and which call it assembly? (And why?) > 2. Am I odd in thinking that in our world, "machine code" is the hex that > the hardware expects, and assembler is the opcodes/mnemonics that we mostly > use? > 3. What are we "assembling"? > > On #1, I suspect that we call it assemblER because that's what ASMXF and H > and HL call themselves as much as any other reason. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language says in part "assembly > language (alternatively assembler language...or symbolic machine code)", > which confirms that it's blurry but doesn't otherwise clarify. > > It also answers, kinda, #3: > > The term "assembler" is generally attributed to Wilkes, Wheeler and Gill > in their 1951 book The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital > Computer,... who, however, used the term to mean "a program that assembles > another program consisting of several sections into a single program". > > So perhaps the two a-words aren't even really appropriate! Too late now, > of course... > > What say ye? Does any of this conflict with your usage/thoughts? > > ...phsiii >
