MACHINE AND ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE

Table of Contents
1

Introduction to Machine and Assembly Language .................................................................. 1

1.1

Low Level Languages .......................................................................................................... 2

1.1.1

Machine Language....................................................................................................... 2

1.1.2

Assembly Language .................................................................................................... 3

1.2

High-Level Languages......................................................................................................... 5

1.3

Translators............................................................................................................................. 5

MACHINE AND ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE

1

Introduction to Machine and Assembly Language

A programming language is used by a human programmer to direct a computer to

accomplish a specific set of steps which lead to a desired outcome.

The figure below is intended to illustrate several key points about programming
languages. First, programming languages are built upon and relate directly to the
underlying computer (hardware). In fact, they are designed to control the operation of
the hardware. Second, these programming languages can be divided into TWO
major groups. They are:

Low-level Languages (Low Level languages are further divided in to
Machine language and Assembly language)

High-Level Languages

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Figure 1: Levels of Programming Languages

1.1
Low Level Languages
The term low level means closeness to the way in which the machine has been built.
Low level languages are machine oriented and require extensive knowledge of
computer hardware and its configuration.

1.1.1 Machine Language

Machine Language is the only language that is directly understood by the computer.
It does not need any translator program. We also call it machine code and it is
written as strings of 1s (one) and 0s (zero). When this sequence of codes is fed to
the computer, it recognizes the codes and converts it in to electrical signals needed
to run it. For example, a program instruction may look like this:
1011000111101

It is not an easy language to learn because of its difficult to understand. It is efficient

for the computer but very inefficient for programmers. It is considered to be first
generation language. It is also difficult to debug the program written in this language.

Advantage of Machine Language

The only advantage is that program of machine language run very fast because no
translation program is required for the CPU.

Disadvantages of Machine Language

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i.

It is very difficult to program in machine language. The programmer has to know

details of hardware to write program.

ii.

The programmer has to remember a lot of codes to write a program which might
easily result in program errors.

iii.

It is difficult to debug the program.

1.1.2 Assembly Language

Instead of using a string of binary bits in a machine language, programmers started
using English-like words as commands that can be easily interpreted by
programmers. In other words, the computer manufacturers started providing Englishlike words abbreviated as mnemonics that are similar to binary instructions in
machine languages. The program is in alphanumeric symbols instead of 1s and 0s.
The designer chooses easy symbols that are to be remembered by the programmer,
so that the programmer can easily develop the program in assembly language. The
alphanumeric symbols are called mnemonics in the assembly language. The ADD,
SUB, MUL, DIV, RLC and RAL are some symbols called mnemonics.

No matter how close assembly language is to machine code, the computer still
cannot understand it. The assembly-language program must be translated into
machine code by a separate program called an assembler. The assembler program
recognizes the character strings that make up the symbolic names of the various
machine operations, and substitutes the required machine code for each instruction.
At the same time, it also calculates the required address in memory for each
symbolic name of a memory location, and substitutes those addresses for the
names. The final result is a machine-language program that can run on its own at
any time; the assembler and the assembly-language program are no longer needed.
To help distinguish between the "before" and "after" versions of the program, the
original assembly-language program is also known as the source code, while the
final machine-language program is designated the object code.

Every processor has its own assembly language. For example, 8085 CPU has its
own assembly language. CPUs such as 8086, 80186, 80286 have their own
assembly languages.
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If an assembly-language program needs to be changed or corrected, it is necessary

to make the changes to the source code and then re-assemble it to create a new
object program..

Advantages of Assembly Language:

i.

The symbolic programming of Assembly Language is easier to understand and

saves a lot of time and effort of the programmer.

ii.

It is easier to correct errors and modify program instructions.

iii.

Assembly Language has the same efficiency of execution as the machine level
language. Because this is one-to-one translator between assembly language
program and its corresponding machine language program.

Disadvantages of Assembly Language:

i.

One of the major disadvantages is that assembly language is machine dependent.

A program written for one computer might not run in other computers with different
hardware configuration i.e. Assembly language programs are not portable.

ii.

It is necessary to remember the registers of CPU and mnemonic instructions by

the programmer.

iii.

Several mnemonic instructions are needed to write in assembly language than a

single line in high-level language. Thus, assembly language programs are longer
than the high language programs.

Advantages of Low-level Languages

Low-level languages have the advantage that they can be written to take advantage
of any peculiarities in the architecture of the central processing unit (CPU) which is
the "brain" of any computer. Thus, a program written in a low-level language can be
extremely efficient, making optimum use of both computer memory and processing
time.

Disadvantages of Low-level Languages

To write a low-level program takes a substantial amount of time, as well as a clear
understanding of the inner workings of the processor itself. Therefore, low-level

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programming is typically used only for very small programs, or for segments of code
that are highly critical and must run as efficiently as possible.

1.2
High-Level Languages
Very early in the development of computers, attempts were made to make
programming easier by reducing the amount of knowledge of the internal workings of
the computer that was needed to write programs. If programs could be presented in
a language that was more familiar to the person solving the problem, then fewer
mistakes would be made.
High-level programming languages allow the specification of a problem solution in
terms closer to those used by human beings. These languages were designed to
make programming far easier, less error-prone and to remove the programmer from
having to know the details of the internal structure of a particular computer. These
high-level languages were much closer to human language.

Advantages of High-level Languages

High-level languages permit faster development of large programs. The final
program as executed by the computer is not as efficient, but the savings in
programmer time generally far outweigh the inefficiencies of the finished product.
This is because the cost of writing a program is nearly constant for each line of code,
regardless of the language. Thus, a high-level language where each line of code
translates to 10 machine instructions costs only one tenth as much in program
development as a low-level language where each line of code represents only a
single machine instruction.

1.3
Translators
A program is a set of instructions for performing a particular task. These instructions
are just like English words. The computer interprets the instructions as 1's and 0's. A
program can be written in assembly language as well as in high-level language. This
written program is called the source program. The source program is to be
converted to the machine language, which is called an object program. A translator
is required for such a translation.

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Program translator translates source code of programming language into machine

language-instruction code. Generally, computer programs are written in languages
like COBOL, C, JAVA, BASIC, ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE etc which should be
translated into machine language before execution. Programming language
translators are classified as shown in the figure below:

Figure 2: Translators

Translators are as follows:

a) Assembler
b) Compiler
c) Interpreter

Assembler: An assembler translates the symbolic codes of programs of an

assembly language into machine language instructions. The symbolic language is
translated to the machine code in the ratio of one is to one symbolic instructions to
one machine code instructions.

Compiler: It is a program which translates a high level language program into a

machine language program. A compiler is more intelligent than an assembler. It
checks all kinds of limits, ranges, errors etc. But its program run time is more and
occupies a larger part of the memory. It has slow speed. Because a compiler goes
through the entire program and then translates the entire program into machine
codes.
If a compiler runs on a computer and produces the machine codes for the same
computer then it is known as a self compiler or resident compiler. On the other hand,
if a compiler runs on a computer and produces the machine codes for other
computer then it is known as a cross compiler.

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Compilers will show errors and warnings for the statements violating the syntax rules
of the language. They also have the ability of linking subroutines of the program.

Interpreter: An interpreter is a program which translates statements of a program

into machine code. It translates only one statement of the program at a time. It reads
only one statement of program, translates it and executes it. Then it reads the next
statement of the program again translates it and executes it. In this way it proceeds
further till all the statements are translated and executed.
On the other hand, a compiler goes through the entire program and then translates
the entire program into machine codes. A compiler is 5 to 25 times faster than an
interpreter.
By the compiler, the machine codes are saved permanently for future reference. On
the other hand, the machine codes produced by interpreter are not saved. An
interpreter is a small program as compared to compiler. It occupies less memory
space, so it can be used in a smaller system which has limited memory space.

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