Machine-Level Assembly Language

I've heard of a level of assembly language called Machine-Level
Assembly Language.  What is Machine-Level Assembly Language?

Brian

Brian wrote:
> I've heard of a level of assembly language called Machine-Level
> Assembly Language.  What is Machine-Level Assembly Language?

The obvious alternative would be microcode-level assembly, but without a
context, I can only guess.

--
John W. Kennedy
"Those in the seat of power oft forget their failings and s only the
obeisance of others!  Thus is bad government born!  Hold in your heart
that you and the people are one, human beings all, and good government
shall arise of its own accord!  Such is the path of virtue!"
-- Kazuo Koike.  "Lone Wolf and Cub:  Thirteen Strings" (tr. Dana Lewis)

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:40:57 -0400, John W. Kennedy wrote:
> Brian wrote: 
>
> The obvious alternative would be microcode-level assembly, but without a
> context, I can only guess.

To the OP:
I don't believe there is a class of assembly language called
"Machine-Level Assembly Language".  There is machine level coding --
where you would actually toggle the code into the machines via front
panel switches (e.g., the Sys/360 and PDP-8), and/or coding the
instruction stream directly in hex (Sys/360) or octal (PDP-8) and
somehow transcribe that to a media (Hollerith cards: Sys/360 or
paper tape: PDP-8) and use a `loader` to suck in the code and lay it down
in memory.

When you get to "Assembly Language", you require some sort of compiler
to decode/encode the almost-english-like instruction mnemonics into the
actual binary encoding usable by the target machine.

Then there's the topic of Relocatability.........

Jonesy -- Sys/360, et.al., assembler coding from 1966 to 1999.
--
Marvin L Jones    | jonz          | W3DHJ  | linux
38.24N  104.55W  |  @ config.com | Jonesy |  OS/2
*** Killfiling google posts: <http://jonz.net/ng.htm>

Brian wrote:

> I've heard of a level of assembly language called Machine-Level
> Assembly Language.  What is Machine-Level Assembly Language?

Well, since the current S/3x0 assembler is called High Level
Assembler, it could be that machine level assembler is the
non-high level version.

Even so, there are many different ways to use the assembler.
One can code instructions with absolute constants or symbolic
addresses.  Code such as:

B  12(15)
DC X'6',CL7'MYNAME'
STM 14,12,12(13)

used to be somewhat common, where others would use a macro or
a USING statement for R15 and use a symbolic name for the branch
destination.

The more symbolic assembler features are used the less
machine-language like the resulting code.

-- glen

On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 06:43:02 -0800, glen herrmannsfeldt
<gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

>Brian wrote:
> 
>
>Well, since the current S/3x0 assembler is called High Level
>Assembler, it could be that machine level assembler is the
>non-high level version.
>
>Even so, there are many different ways to use the assembler.
>One can code instructions with absolute constants or symbolic
>addresses.  Code such as:
>
>    B  12(15)
>    DC X'6',CL7'MYNAME'
>    STM 14,12,12(13)
>
>used to be somewhat common, where others would use a macro or
>a USING statement for R15 and use a symbolic name for the branch
>destination.
>
>The more symbolic assembler features are used the less
>machine-language like the resulting code.

Then there are assemblers for the microcode portions of various
computers and other devices.
>
>-- glen