Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Assembly Language

Options
  • 21-09-2006 1:09pm
    #1
    smithslist
    Registered Users Posts: 618 ✭✭✭


    Hi all,

    I am looking into learning assembly language and am wondering if anybody can recommend what assembler to use, or what books, internet links etc to look at to help me.

    or any other advice that you think would help me.

    much appreciated for your help.....


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    plenderj
    Registered Users Posts: 431 ✭✭plenderj


    What processor do you want to design applications for?


  • Options
    #3
    smithslist
    Registered Users Posts: 618 ✭✭✭smithslist


    thanks plenderj for your reply......

    i will be designing applications\OS systems for smartcards, that is why i need to use assembly language so I will not be using up so much memory, as memory space is important for smartcard development.


  • Options
    #4
    themole
    Closed Accounts Posts: 888 ✭✭✭themole


    but it really depends on the chip being used.

    Different chips have very different assembly languages and compilers.

    If you just want to learn the basics, or assembly in general, you can't go far wrong with the 8051. Lots of info out there on it. Including lots of free compilers.

    Just google 8051


  • Options
    #5
    smithslist
    Registered Users Posts: 618 ✭✭✭smithslist


    I dont know if you know it but I have being reading "The Art of Assembly Language Programming" by Randall Hyde to get the basics and all, but I will google 8051 and check it out.

    thanks for that.....


  • Options
    #6
    Blowfish
    Registered Users Posts: 5,112 ✭✭✭Blowfish


    smithslist wrote:
    I dont know if you know it but I have being reading "The Art of Assembly Language Programming" by Randall Hyde.
    That's actually the one I would have suggested to start with.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    DublinDilbert
    Registered Users Posts: 5,379 ✭✭✭DublinDilbert


    Don't know a lot about smart cards ( never really worked with them ), but from memory there are 2 types, some are purely just EEPROM ( simiar to phone sim cards ) and the rest have CPUs on board ( simiar to the Sky cards ).

    I believe that the CPU used on some of the smart cards is a 16F Microchip PIC CPU (or clone of this ). There's lots of resources on the net for writing assembly for the 16F PIC family. There are also some very efficent C-compilers too, so depending on what you are doing, you might be able to do it in C, and avoid having to learn the full instruction set of the PIC.

    PIC assembly programing isn't too bad, theres so much stuff on the net... also microchip have quite good app. notes....

    From a hardware point of view the SPI pins from the CPU, reset, VCC and GND are all available on the smart card connector. This allows the target device to be erased/programmed, and it genrally uses an SPI type interface for commuications with the target system in the application.

    hope this helps, most of it's from memory...



    http://www.kanda.com/index.php3?cs=1&bc=direct&bw=%2Fbrowse.php3%3Fnode%3D117
    http://www.epanorama.net/links/smartcards.html
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_card
    http://www.smartcardbasics.com/cardtypes.html


  • Options
    #8
    democrates
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,046 ✭✭✭democrates


    DublinDilbert wrote:
    Don't know a lot about smart cards ( never really worked with them ), but from memory there are 2 types, some are purely just EEPROM ( simiar to phone sim cards ) and the rest have CPUs on board ( simiar to the Sky cards ).
    A guy I worked with who was involved in the chipper scheme once told me that chipcard is a generic term for any card with a chip, but smartcard is reserved for a chipcard with a cpu. /pedantic anecdote

    Haven't looked at these in a while, java was all the rage about 8 years ago, and gemplus had a kit with two cards, a reader, and win-pc software for r&d, but I got the impression it was not much use without one of their training courses, there wasn't much helpful information on their site back then. Schlumberger are a big name in smartcards too, but a google for 'smartcard development kit' might be more helpful.


Advertisement