On Friday, August 24, 2018 at 11:16:34 AM UTC-5, Rick C. Hodgin wrote:   
   > I'm preparing a brief (15 minutes) assembly programming course for the   
   > general workings of assembly language on the i386 and later CPUs, but   
   > mostly focused on the i386's base architecture and design.   
   >   
   > For a 15 minute class to people who typically operate in something like   
   > python, Java, maybe a little C++, what would you suggest I offer them?   
   >   
   > I think my goals would be to explain the fundamental nature of the CPU   
   > core, such as things like registers, memory, I/O, integer and FPU, and   
   > how things are done step-wise to process things they take for granted,   
   > like "pi = 3.14159;".   
   >   
   > Any assistance would be appreciated.   
   >   
   > --   
   > Rick C. Hodgin   
      
   Their point of view is HLL, in other words, hardware abstraction, so you'll   
   loose them if you start with hardware.  In the back of their minds they'll   
   be thinking, 'I don't need to know this'.   
      
   ISTM you'ld be better off taking the simplist 'hello world' in C and using   
   gcc to dump its source in asm.  Going over that translation is their intro to   
   registers.  Focus on data, code, and stack, program & function entry and exit.   
   Stress that, in effect, asm is an intermediate translation for their HLL in   
   gcc.   
   Do an equivalent program in NASM for comparison.  I would not go further into   
   hardware than the code, data, stack registers and instructions used.  The   
   'show & tell' will stick better than a dive into the hardware background.  In   
   15 minutes, you can just about do what I've outlined.   
      
   JMHO,   
   Steve   
      
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