8MACHINE CODE AND ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE
We’ve covered the physical parts of a computer: the CPU, main memory, and I/O devices. Understanding the hardware of a computer is important, but hardware is only half the story. The magic of computers is in software. It’s software that moves a computer from being a fixed-purpose device to a highly flexible device that can easily take on new abilities! In this chapter we cover low-level software—machine code and assembly language. I’ve found that these topics are best understood using an interactive approach, so the bulk of this chapter’s content is in the projects.
Software Terms Defined
To discuss software, ...
Get How Computers Really Work now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
