Customer Reviews

Introduction to 80X86 Assembly Language and Computer Architecture

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book as a refresher and as a reference to keep on my shelf at work, where I need to write (or at least read and understand) some Intel x86 assembly from time to time. I was looking for something that wasn't as outdated as my college textbook, "80X86 IBM PC and Compatible Computers: Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing, Vols. 1 and 2" by Mazidi et al (mine is the second edition). That is the problem with a lot of assembly books, is that they pre-date the 32-bit instruction set (the 80386 and higher CPUs) and hence they give a lot of bad and just wrong advice. This book does not have that problem, which is good. It also does a great job of helping the high-level language programmer understand how their programming language constructs translate into assembly instructions and actually take place. I have never seen a good explanation of that outside of articles by disassemblers and reverse engineers, but every programmer ought to know these concepts because it may come in handy when debugging some day.

But although it serves as an excellent introduction to the material, it is on the thin side (500 pages) for the hefty textbook price it wields. It's just not comprehensive, nor does it have any practical programming lessons for the reader. Unlike my college textbook above, which was used for a two semester senior-level course, this textbook just doesn't cover what I want (a practical guide to using assembly in the field, as opposed to just in the classroom). I don't think it's thorough enough for a comprehensive college course in the subject. When you finish the book, you may understand assembly, but you won't know what to do with it (or what you can do with it). Nor is it thorough enough to be used as a reference material for work. It omits quite a few processor instructions that I feel are important to know for reference.

My advice is to pass on this book, unless you are completely new to the material, because it seems like a good learning text. Even still, you will eventually need a more authoritative reference guide for when you encounter the things this book doesn't cover (such as interfacing the PC hardware).

Intel's "Software Developers Manuals" are freely available at their site in PDF, and I would suggest downloading all of those as your reference and purchasing Mazidi's book (now in fourth edition and NOT outdated anymore) for a few bucks more than this one.

Great starting point for learning 32 bits assembly language with
DOS and Windows. The only defect of this book is its unbelievable price... surely due to the fact that is used a college textbook so the poor students have no choice but squander their savings on it. Luckily the content is very good,
the teaching style is excellent ( the author uses macros initially to do input and output so you won't be overwhelmed by lots of material just to write and read from the keyboard, and after you have played a bit a learned the basics he goes on explaining them). You can certainly read this book with no prior exposure to assembly and computer inner workings.
You 'better have at least some exp with a high level language,
and if you don't, why on earth do you want to start programming with assembly? Masochisms?
The one word that comes to mind about this book and author is CLARITY. It is certainly not a fun
read, but it is so clear that it is not boring.
Compliments to Richard and one star less than the max because of the rip-off price. (Get it used!)

02/07/2003 - UK

I have read many introductory books on 80x86 assembly language. Every book I have read had some problems (not up to date, 16 bits only, segmented model, dos only, too long and boring, etc...) For the first time I found no disadvantages!

This book is easy to understand and it is for beginners; still, it is not trivial nor boring! It is interesting and somehow challenging. It is up-to-date: 32 bits, flat model, windows APIs, and MASM. It comes with a CD with all the software you need. Of course the book includes only basic assembly instructions (no directx, no SSE, etc...).

I strongly believe this is the best introductory book for learning 80x86 assembly language.

This excellent addition to any programmers library is the only assembly language book that focuses entirely on the 32 bit flat memory model (under Windows). Sixteen bit programming is mentioned only to fill in background details where needed. Early chapters give an introduction to binary and hexadecimal numbers and a brief overview of computer hardware before discussing how to assemble and link programs plus step through their execution using the Windbg debugger. Subsequent chapters delve into the various assembly instructions, explaining not only the instructions themselves but also what flags are set, the size of the instructions in bytes plus the number of clock cycles consumed in their execution (for the 386, 486 and pentium architectures). Lastly, features such as macros, the assembly process, floating point architecture and the authors own input/output macros (used in earlier chapters to simplify coding) plus other input/output details are discussed.

Throughout the writing is lucid and to the point, with numerous references to high level constructs and how they may be implemented in assembly language. Coming from a C++ background this book filled in numerous gaps in my knowledge, making it a lot easier to get to grips with what the compiler was doing to my C++ code. Though aimed at the student this is a worthwhile investment for anyone interested in exploring 32 bit assembly programming under Windows. My only complaints are the complete lack of answers for any of the exercises given throughout the book plus the horrendous cost. However the clarity and depth of the explanations in the text go some way towards making up for this. A further bonus is the CD package which includes MASM (ML 6.11), Windbg, plus all source code and needed support files.

With only knowledge of a high level language (C/C++) I started with this book and it was well worth the money. A good introduction to the hexadecimal and binary numbers, then a brief look at the inner workings and then on with the assembly instructions, process flow and subroutines. A very clear way of showing things, well written. The only thing I missed were the answers to the question posed at the end of the chapter. But only one e-mail to the author was enough to obtain them, therefore many thanx to Mr. Detmer.
Great!!

Richard Detmer has done an excellent job of relating a very difficult subject! I originally signed up for a a class in assembly language my sophomore year. As a computer science major, the course is mandatory. Three weeks into the class I dropped it.....despite the instructors knowledge of the subject, the textbook we were using made no sense. I reregistered for the class the next semester, and the textbook had changed. Although I had to pay for a new textbook, the cost was well worth it! This book makes sense to the novice assembly programmer, and carries the reader well into an intermediate level of understanding of the subject. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning assembly programming on an 80x86 platform (which includes most non-embedded systems these days), or studying this material for a course. If you are taking a class in assembly, I would strongly suggest you use this textbook as a supplement.

I needed a good book to help me with a security lab class where we wrote and examined shell code to exploit applications. I had little ASM experience and this book helped a lot. The book is the most up to date assembly book I could find, covering 64 bit architectures and more. If you need to understand how assembly works to write shell code I would highly reccomend this book. The section on understanding the stack is very useful to understand how to exploit applications and why these exploits work. The only drawback that I see to this book is the price, it is very expensive. I feel that ASM is a pretty highly specialized area which justifies the price.

Yes I spelled mov wrong according to English terms on purpose. Only assembly programmers will love the joke. haha

I bought the 2nd edition (2009) version of this book. This site Amazon.com lists the pages wrong. Its actually less then 400 pages. But on the good side, the book does cover information on 32-Bit and is excellent source for learning the basics of 64-Bit programming with the CPU.

What I found interesting is it shows you info on the Microsoft Visual Studio Debugging software to track down bugs in your programming. Something you do not see in other books.

Now the Sad info on this book. The Book is geared toward Windows and Microsoft in general. A BIG NO NO in my opinion. This book should be geared for "Computers" not just Microsoft. Linux users might as well not even bother with this book. And if your like me who makes my own Operating System, this book is only slightly helpful. Glad I only paid 6 bucks.

But if your all about Windows, then this book is for you. Do to it being about Microsoft, it's the reason I gave this book only 3 stars.

I was a casual reader trying to finally understand the fundementals of how assembly worked and how it related to machine/binary. It started on it, then launched into VERY specific items that was over my head. You need to understand C and have a grasp of other basics before picking this up.

After reading half of Randall Hyde's AoA, I got pissed off at reading HLA and bought this book and finished it in a month. This satisfied my expectations. This book uses MASM (Intel syntax) with Visual Studio (Express version is available for free).

Pros:
- Very clear and explicit explanations and examples
- Good structuring of the chapters
- Gives the reader excellent insight on the fundamental instructions of x86 instruction set

Cons:
- Doesn't really explain computer architecture in depth, but is expected in a 389 page book concentrating on assembly language, which I find to be the most important
- Does not show how to use functions from Visual Studio's libraries (had to learn how to prototype functions myself from Microsoft's website)