4.10 A DISCUSSION ON ASSEMBLERS
In the program shown in Table 4.3, it is a simple matter to convert from the assembly language instruction Load 104, for example, to the machine language instruction 0x1104. But why bother with this conversion? Why not just write in machine code? Although it is very efficient for computers to see these instructions as binary numbers, it is difficult for human beings to understand and program in sequences of 0s and 1s. We prefer words and symbols over long numbers, so it seems a natural solution to devise a program that does this simple conversion for us. This program is called an assembler.
4.10.1 What Do Assemblers Do?
An assembler’s job is to convert assembly language (using mnemonics) into machine language ...
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