Customer Reviews

Mainframe Assembler Programming

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

 

 

This is a very good book for someone who is new to assembler, but is also appropriate for someone familiar with an assembler language who wishes to learn mainframe assembler. Not only does this book describe the assembler instructions, but it explains important bit-level concepts and the use of structured programming techniques with assembler. The book begins with an example of a one-instruction assembler program for writing a message to the console. As new instructions are introduced, practical examples of their use are presented and explained. Each chapter ends with a series of exercises. The first exercise is always a set of True/False questions (with answers in the back of the book). The remaining exercises are simple programming problems. Included with this book is a copy of a freeware application for simulating a mainframe assembler in DOS. There is also an appendix which describes the steps that are needed on a mainframe to run mainframe assembler programs that were created on the PC. If your goal is to learn to write mainframe assembler programs, then I don't see how you could miss with this book.

This book is a fairly good intro to Assembler language on MVS. Programmers who have not got a clue about what Assembler is, will benefit from it. However, you'll outgrow this book in two weeks. Character and number representation is dealt in detail. But important concepts like base register, addressability and macro language are only mentioned here and there without any real treatment. This indeed leaves a big gap in the book. Do buy this book if you are really new in the world of Assembler. Don't buy this book if you are planning to become a systems programmer one day.

After struggling for weeks in a local community college online class using Peter Abel's Programming Assembler Language book with the PC370 IBM370 emulator, I happened upon a link to Bill Quall's excellent book. It is extremely readable, has excellent, clearly documented & complete programs to illustrate concepts, and very educational end of chapter quizzes with answers in the back. Best of all, it is written specifically to work with Don Higgin's PC370 emulator (the differences are few, but important). I doubt I would have passed the class without this book (due to lack of applicable information in the resources I had prior to finding this book).

The only thing I could come up with (and it is only a caution, not a true negative) is that although the book is 563 pages, it does not go as far as I would like. I would love to have a volume 2 by the same author which describes use of multiple CSECT programs and MACRO writing (and whatever else I don't know I'm missing).

Another caution: I paid $25 or so for a used copy and now the only copy I see online is offered at $99 (used), so I might look around a bit or try to plow through the IBM Principles of Operations (free online) unless I absolutely needed to get up to speed quickly for class or work.

Overall, I cannot praise the writing style and educational value of this book highly enough, especially for a newbie to mainframe assembly programming (don't think it will be of much use to those wanting to learn Intel assembly!)

This book is excellent for students, or for someone like me who had to get into mainframe assembler in a hurry. I was able to read the book in about 4 hours, and doing the examples in the book helped lock the concepts into my mind.

I would like to see a section with more information on the mainframe and additional material on more advanced subjects. Some preparation on the kinds of assembler errors to expect from the mainframe would be nice too.

I need to know how comprehensive the pc/370 assembler is. Is it just a subset, or the whole thing, including macros? Is there a way I/you can contact the author?