Assembly Flashcards
What is assembly language?
Assembly language is a low-level programming language that is a symbolic representation of machine code making it easier for humans to understand and write programs that can be directly executed by a computer’s CPU.
Explain the difference between assembly language and machine code.
Machine code consists of binary instructions directly executed by the CPU while assembly language uses mnemonics and symbols to represent those instructions in a more human-readable form.
What is a mnemonic in assembly language?
A mnemonic is a symbolic representation of an operation code (opcode) in assembly language making it easier for programmers to remember and use.
Define an instruction set in the context of assembly language.
An instruction set is the collection of instructions that a particular CPU architecture understands and can execute.
What is the purpose of registers in a CPU?
Registers are small fast storage locations within a CPU that are used to hold data temporarily during program execution.
Explain the concept of addressing modes in assembly language.
Addressing modes define how the operands of an instruction are specified indicating where the data to be processed is located.
What is a jump instruction?
A jump instruction (or branch instruction) in assembly language transfers program control to a different part of the code enabling conditional or unconditional branching.
Define the stack in the context of assembly language.
The stack is a region of memory used for storing temporary data and managing subroutine calls in a program.
What is the role of an assembler in the assembly language programming process?
An assembler is a program that converts assembly language code into machine code allowing the CPU to execute the program.
Explain the concept of bitwise operations in assembly language.
Bitwise operations manipulate individual bits in binary numbers providing efficient ways to perform tasks such as shifting AND OR and XOR operations.
