A common misconception is that assembly language programming is a relic of the past. This is certainly not the case, and assembly language remains a core knowledge area for embedded systems development, digital design, and algorithm development in the 21st century.
A second misconception, especially amongst those who are only familiar with higher level languages (Python, Ruby, C#/.NET, Perl), is that assembly language is a defective programming language and therefore not worth the time to invest in.
But assembly language is more than ‘just another general purpose programming language’. It is actually the control signal specification for the microprocessor or microcontroller that will be running the instructions, and whose digital design must be reasonably well understood in order to get it to work successfully.
Furthermore, higher level languages often use simpler toolchains hidden behind slick integrated development environments (IDEs). These toolchains consist of various software components (pre-processor, compiler, assembler, linker, loader) which take the high level code and transform it to executable machine code that can run on the target processor, often passing through an intermediate stage generating assembly code. Familiarity with this toolchain can help evaluate how much overhead the high-level tools introduce on the code, which is an important part of understanding how much you’re trading.
In this article, we’ll look first take a look at the software toolchain involved in general terms, before turning to specific tools you can use on a modern Windows computer (through Windows 11) to target an x86 chip (no longer in your PC but in a DOS Emulator). Similar skills and approaches carry over to the toolchain for the Atmel 328P and ATTiny 85 with a graphics application (TinyPhoto) on the ATTiny85 here.
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