Customer Reviews

Mastering Turbo Assembler

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Mastering Turbo Assembler" is a great book! It teaches you to write stand-alone assembly programs in DOS AND Windows. The book is full of examples which are explained in detail. All the code is written in TASM's IDEAL mode, which is better than MASM mode. Tom Swan really stimulates you to write your own programs and that is the key to become a good programmer. So read the book and with the information it profides you must try to make your own programs in order to check if you really understand it.

But I must make clear that this book ONLY teaches you to WRITE programs in assembly. If you need basic information about the architecture of the 8086/8088 family (how memory and processor works etc.) this is not a good book to begin with. If you want to learn assembly from scratch (as I did) I recommend the book Jeff Duntemann wrote; "Assembly Language: Step by step". With this book and "Mastering Turbo Assembler" you have all the information you need to start programming in assembly.

I taught myself assembly language originally from this book. Although it is quite dated now, it's still a great way to learn assembler. All explanations are clear, and the book has a nice organization. From here, you can jump on to more advanced topics, and catch up with the latest tech by reading manuals from chip makers, etc..

This book is worth a look.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Tom Swan's writing style is clear and concise. If I could only have one book on assembler this would be it. The code is written using Ideal Mode but is easily adapted to Masm. I highly recommend Swan's coding style! I rated this book with a 9 because the book does NOT cover extended (32-bit) registers, nor the numeric processor, which you will need for any serious programming. Get this book and Morneau's "PC Assembly Launguage" for complete coverage

Nice coverage of software topic. OOP, interfacing to C, etc. However, assembly language is inherently hardware specific. Swan's (C)'95 book doesn't do much with '386,'486, nor Pentium CPUs which were out circa '93. Selector registers, the tag register used to toggle 16/32-bit MODES & hence "flat thunking" slighted. If you use DOS, this book seems excellent. If you use WinDOS 95, MasterClass Asm.Lang. also '95 from Wrox may be better.

You really need to read Jeff Dunteman's book first to get the most out of this book. I found it to be very readable. He also explains the gotchas really well. You can't go wrong with this one. Too bad this subject takes all your time. The book is roughly 869 pages long in not so large type. Seeya!

It's a GREAT book for DOS programming, but didn't have enough information on Windows programming. There was only one chapter on Windows programming. Great for new assembler language programers, but not for advanced programers and Windows programers.

this is a great book. it's clear and concise, organized well, and great for the beginner. as for the argument about windows programming I disagree. it teaches you plenty about using asm in windows(assuming you know the windoes api). but but but! no one in their right mind would write an assembly program using the windows api, unless of course their reasons were purely academic. you write windows programs in c or some other high level language then you write your most used application specific algorithms in assembly. it's a waste of time to develop a windows program in pure assembly, most of the "windows" in a windows program consists of calls to windows functions anyway, so what's the use? buy this book if you're a beginner interested in using assembly.

I have programmed professionally in assembly language for 15 years. I'm also a collector of good books. This book is a great book, having all information of Turbo Assembler, instructions and assembly language programming in one book. It also tech you to use Turbo Assembler IDEAL mode. Turbo Assembler in IDEAL mode is the greatest x86 assembler in the world. This is the only book I have found learning you using Turbo Assembler IDEAL mode syntax. In IDEAL mode you can handle structures and unions as you do in C, easy interface to high level languages etc. This book will learn you how to use Turbo Assembler strengths and you will learn a more productive way of programming in assembly language. Regardless wether you are a beginner, intermediate or professional I highly recommend this book. If you refer to your self a professional of x86 assembly language programming and do not program using Turbo Assembler IDEAL mode, buy this book and learn IDEAL mode syntax, to become even more skilled as a professional.

This book was very well written. I liked the authors writing style. This book is very effective in starting the reader from the beginning and taking them through writing assembly apps. It has great examples throughout each chapter to help put together the content. Overall it is a great book!

Tom Swan has created another excellent tutorial book. I spent a year of lunch time reading on this one. Excellent progression of ideas. In the end I went from being a complete novice of assembly language to writing standalone assembler for Windows applications - and being comfortable with it! Excellent tutorial on the more advanced uses of the Borland Debugger CPU view.