Dragon User


Programmer Utilities

Author: John Scriven
Publisher: Microdeal
Machine: Dragon 32

 
Published in Dragon User #021

This cassette contains nine short programs that each make up a lesson about machine code programming in general and using the 6809E in particular. Some lessons are terminated with a short question and answer section sometimes using multi-choice answers.

The first session introduces the ideas behind machine code programming and how the different registers in the 6809E processor operate. The second session talks about different number systems and why hexadecimal and binary are used in computers rather than base 10. Many of the sessions use examples of machine code programming to illustrate particular points and to demonstrate the advantages over Basic.

Subsequent tutorials go through addressing modes,branching and the whole instruction set, and later sessions touch upon pseudo-ops and short machine-code routines used to speed up video displays in your own programs. The style is rather compact but friendly, and is not beyond the comprehension of an able secondary school pupil.

Although I feel there could have been more question and answer sessions, and that the computer is frequently used merely as an electronic blackboard, this cassette does go some way to de-mystifying the world of machine language and that can't in itself be a bad thing.

John Scriven

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