Customer Reviews

IBM PC Assembly Language and Programming (5th Edition)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

While not perfect for the beginning x86 assembly language programmer, Abel's text is an excellent overview of the basic and intermediate concepts of x86 assembly. This text covers many of the commands of the x86 instruction set and is an excellent introduction to learning about various BIOS and DOS interrupts. Herein lies a slight problem with the text. Relying too heavily on the "old world" of DOS and Windows 95/98 (and possibly - depending on your system - Windows 2000), this text often takes for granted that you are running on an older Microsoft-based x86 system. As long as you can overcome this compatibility "hurdle", this text is an excellent source for learning about x86 assembly. It covers the topic of machine code, which is of prime importance for those who are interested in writing assembler and compilers (and for writing succinct assembly), and also has copious notes on all the instructions taught in the text.

I bought this book for the express purpose of learning and programming PC-BIOS Assembly language functions, because I read the 3rd edition of this same book and found it to be excellent. I was severely disappointed to learn that the very chapter I wanted to thoroughly dissect was rewritten from being operating system independent to being operating system dependent, the dependent operating systems being DOS and Windows 95/98. A good deal of the information in this book depends upon these operating systems and will not work with Windows 2000, ME, or XP.

The book provides meticulously thorough backgrounds, mundane explanations, and vague and ambiguous examples. Personally, I wish the depth of information was structured completely opposite.

If you just want to "learn the ropes" of Assembly and have access to a DOS or Windows 95/98 machine to learn them on, this book will do. If you need something portable, something operating system independent, this book is not for you.

This book is a required text in an undergrad class on Assembly Language that I was taking. I found this book to be too difficult for a beginner simply, not because of the sophisticated concepts introduced here but because of the errors and lack of explanation. The latter half of the book is essentially like a reference and provided no explanation most of the time. Even for the example programs given in the text, there was not sufficient explanation. I also found that most of the programs (particularly in the latter half) do not work at all. I could fix a few bugs in some programs to make them work, however, this is a time consuming effort. Unless you have a really good instructor who can help you with the bugs and explanation of the code, I will not recommend this book. While I struggled with this book and managed to get an 'A' grade, I would look elsewhere if I had to do it all over again!

This book is not recommended to anyone who just started learning assembly, as they're very hard to understand.
For beginners, I would highly recommend "80x86 IBM PC AND COMPATIBLE COMPUTERS (Volumes I & II)" by Muhammad Ali Mazidi, which also covers the subject thoroughly.

As a computer science student with 20 years of programming experience, I encountered Peter Abel's book (Fifth Ed.) published by Prentice Hall while taking an Assembly Language programming class.

It is, bar none, the single worst computer language and programming resource I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. Not only does it lack critical details about methodology, it fails to include comprehensible explanations about the examples already provided. If it were simply that it was incomprehensible it might still be acceptable as a resource later on when clearer and more concise means of learning the subject are used. But this book contains more out and out flaws than the Beta release of Windows XP. Many of the programs included as examples of a concept in action DO NOT WORK. In fact, there are serious operative flaws in them. Further, several of the questions do not match the terminology found in the text, there are more typos and omissions in this book than in the average High School newspaper and actually learning anything useful and productive from this book alone would take an IQ higher than 180.

If someone has years of programming experience IN ASSEMBLY, then it would probably make sense. As an aid to teaching the subject, not only does Mr. Abel miss the mark, he doesn't even aim in the right direction. For a student, this book is the academic equivalent of a twenty car freeway pile-up. Avoid it at all costs.

First, please understand that I purchased this book for a college class in assembly, but I am also a programmer with 15 years professional experience, and some of material is not new to me. I have read a great number of programming books, and with that said, this book has little value beyond reference. It makes brief mention of advanced concepts I am trying to learn, and then jumps elsewhere. The examples are hard to follow, and often to not provide instructions on recreating them. I am purchasing another book to supplement this class, as I will never learn the material from this book.

Dear fellow readers:
The concept of writing assembly programs frightens most programmers who have adjusted in writing software in a third generation language (e.g., Pascal, C). In fact I have read two other books in my quest to understand assembly. But this book is definitely the best I have came across. The author has broken down the assembly instructions into many chapters that can be useful in locating the subject of interest, and skipping those that do not pertain to the reader's interest. His explanation of the interrupts and their associated services are uncanny. He has organised them into modular format so that the programmer can write programs as though he/she is connecting a large jigsaw puzzle. To my experience this made reading and writing assembly much easier task.

I used this book as a stand-alone for a programming class. I found that for someone who has concentrated mainly on C++ and no background on Assembly language, that it was probably not the best book to try to learn from. I feel that a good bit of information is given in this book that you need to know, but only if you have had SOME experience in this area.

The book is a complete reference on assembly language instructions, operands and data types. Sadly, only programming in real mode is covered and protected mode is left out. There also is nothing on DMA. However, the book makes up for this but being crystally clear in it's examples and explanations; the book is meant to serve not only as a reference but also as a tutorial, and therefore has little programs in assembly code scattered around to type in and assemble. At the end of each chapter there are quiz-type questions on the material in case you wish to test your knowledge. Yes, it is possible to learn assembly language well through this book.

I used this book as the textbook required in my Assembly class. With the help of this book I had a lot of trouble getting started. It was really killing me. But as I went on reading, I began to understand what the previous chapters were talking about. As I got a hang of it, the book became more and more useful and important to me. So This book is really good after all, but only if you don't give up in the beginning.