Some assembly required : assembly language programming with the AVR microcontroller Timothy S. Margush

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Introduction What is Assembly Language? The functionality of every computer system is centred on a processor. The processor is responsible for controlling most aspects of the computer system. Its name indicates its function; processing data, performing arithmetic and logical operations, storing and retrieving information, and communicating with or controlling peripheral devices. Every processor has its own native language, called machine language. These are the processing instructions that are unique to each processor. Machine language instructions are simply binary codes that are interpreted by the processor's hardware and converted to a sequence of electrical signals that alter the state of the computer system. Machine language programming is accomplished by carefully devising sequences of bits, usually organized into bytes or words that need to be placed in appropriate memory locations before execution begins. Programming at the machine language level requires knowledge of what is called the Instruction Set Architecture of the processor. This level of the processor's design is realized by an even lower level, called the microarchitecture. In some cases, the microarchitecture level is implemented using even more primitive instructions called microcode. The Instruction Set Architecture of a processor includes its instruction set and the system components the instructions directly or indirectly affect. These components include registers, memory, addressing, interrupts, exceptions, and even the primitive data types that can be manipulated by the instructions. For each particular machine language, an Assembly Language can be designed to aid a programmer in the process of writing a machine language program. Assembly Language is a plain text expression of a machine"--

ECTE333