@phooky everyone keeps sending me this, I'm not super clear why, I haven't played it yet, is it because it's the only contact people with assembly or?

@neauoire @phooky it’s a fun little game. shenzen I/o and exapunks by the same developer are also good. exapunks is easiest to play.

@fn @phooky I've played shenzen, it's very cool :)

@neauoire probably because it (and exapunks and shenzhen I/O) also feature very stripped-down ISAs that can be learned quickly. The neat thing about these games is that the processors are embedded in really interesting parallel architectures. It's speculative fiction for hardware design! Also, the puzzles are basically tsumego for assembly nerds.

@neauoire (if you want to mess around with the architecture without the overhead of the game, I think there are a few TIS-100 emulators up on github.)

@borko learn 6502, try making a little NES/C64 game :)

@neauoire Sounds like a plan, so where do I start:

So far I found two books:

https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/#snake

https://www.atariarchives.org/mlb/

I read that I can use dasm for debugging?

Looks like I also need an emulator and some documentation for platform-based stuff, right?

@borko

Get the asm6 assembler.

https://git.sr.ht/~rabbits/famicom_cookbook/tree/master/item/tools/asm6.c

This will assemble a .asm file into a .rom that works on the NES.

Here's my notes on 6502 writing

https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/assembly.html

Here are examples to do "most things" on a NES

https://git.sr.ht/~rabbits/famicom_cookbook/tree/master/item/examples

fceux is my favourite NES emulator :)

@neauoire Haha, thanks, but those resources look a little above my level. But maybe it will become clear when I go through a few tutorials, thanks.

@borko you must at least complete the skilldrick tutorials first yeah :) Otherwise it'll all look very strange. But let me know once you've completed it and if you have any questions then!

@neauoire OK, so I guess I was on the right track with those ;)

@borko yup! it's the first thing I did when I got started.

@neauoire Looking at the cookbook repo now. A lot of unknowns.

The examples/*/build.sh files seem obsolete, btw.

@borko
Assembly is only impressive because it is direct manipulation of the CPU itself. No nasty middleman, a.k.a programming language.

Get yourself a development board of an Arduino or ESP32, and feel the joy when a LED blinks due to your newfound Assembler Magic Powers.
It is soooo easy nowadays.

@neauoire @zens

@borko @neauoire

Borko don't listen to those advices: the best way to learn ASM is integrating small operation it into C programs, to optimize functions.
Example:
https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/15971/Using-Inline-Assembly-in-C-C

This way you have a practical use for what you're learning, and get some satisfaction over a project that is working on your computer, and not inside a Z80 emulator.

Also, always start from 8086 so you can make programs to actually run on your computer and you can give it a purpose, and avoid previous Z80 and 6502 since you they are "useless" unless you physically buy the actual chip and build something like a robot or a microcomputer like "Ben Eater" on YouTube.
(Unless of course you want to go that direction, i.e.: making a NES game)

Anyway give a look his breadboard computer is awesome:
https://youtube.com/c/BenEater

@childishgiant I'd be happy to help, assembly for which platform?

@neauoire Well I've been trying x86. I did a very basic equivalent to assembly when learning computing which only had 11 instructions. Maybe I should just write some stuff for uxn 😅

@childishgiant Well, uxn is very much for working with forth-machines, if that's something that interests you, dive into the tutorial.

For more, standard and less esoteric asm languages, I'd recommend looking at 6502 or z80, try making a little NES game. The 6502 assembly language is great, I have a LOT of documentations and examples if you're interested.

https://git.sr.ht/~rabbits/famicom_cookbook/tree/master/item/examples

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