Introduction to 80x86 Assembly Language and Computer Architecture

After reading half of Randall Hyde's AoA, I got pissed off at reading HLA and bought this book and finished it in a month. This satisfied my expectations. This book uses MASM (Intel syntax) with Visual Studio (Express version is available for free). Pros: - Very clear and explicit explanations and examples - Good structuring of the chapters - Gives the reader excellent insight on the fundamental instructions of x86 instruction set Cons: - Doesn't really explain computer architecture in depth, but is expected in a 389 page book concentrating on assembly language, which I find to be the most important - Does not show how to use functions from Visual Studio's libraries (had to learn how to prototype functions myself from Microsoft's website)

I needed a good book to help me with a security lab class where we wrote and examined shell code to exploit applications. I had little ASM experience and this book helped a lot. The book is the most up to date assembly book I could find, covering 64 bit architectures and more. If you need to understand how assembly works to write shell code I would highly reccomend this book. The section on understanding the stack is very useful to understand how to exploit applications and why these exploits work. The only drawback that I see to this book is the price, it is very expensive. I feel that ASM is a pretty highly specialized area which justifies the price.

Great starting point for learning 32 bits assembly language with DOS and Windows. The only defect of this book is its unbelievable price... surely due to the fact that is used a college textbook so the poor students have no choice but squander their savings on it. Luckily the content is very good, the teaching style is excellent ( the author uses macros initially to do input and output so you won't be overwhelmed by lots of material just to write and read from the keyboard, and after you have played a bit a learned the basics he goes on explaining them). You can certainly read this book with no prior exposure to assembly and computer inner workings. You 'better have at least some exp with a high level language, and if you don't, why on earth do you want to start programming with assembly? Masochisms? The one word that comes to mind about this book and author is CLARITY. It is certainly not a fun read, but it is so clear that it is not boring. Compliments to Richard and one star less than the max because of the rip-off price. (Get it used!)

I bought this book as a refresher and as a reference to keep on my shelf at work, where I need to write (or at least read and understand) some Intel x86 assembly from time to time. I was looking for something that wasn't as outdated as my college textbook, "80X86 IBM PC and Compatible Computers: Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing, Vols. 1 and 2" by Mazidi et al (mine is the second edition). That is the problem with a lot of assembly books, is that they pre-date the 32-bit instruction set (the 80386 and higher CPUs) and hence they give a lot of bad and just wrong advice. This book does not have that problem, which is good. It also does a great job of helping the high-level language programmer understand how their programming language constructs translate into assembly instructions and actually take place. I have never seen a good explanation of that outside of articles by disassemblers and reverse engineers, but every programmer ought to know these concepts because it may come in handy when debugging some day. But although it serves as an excellent introduction to the material, it is on the thin side (500 pages) for the hefty textbook price it wields. It's just not comprehensive, nor does it have any practical programming lessons for the reader. Unlike my college textbook above, which was used for a two semester senior-level course, this textbook just doesn't cover what I want (a practical guide to using assembly in the field, as opposed to just in the classroom). I don't think it's thorough enough for a comprehensive college course in the subject. When you finish the book, you may understand assembly, but you won't know what to do with it (or what you can do with it). Nor is it thorough enough to be used as a reference material for work. It omits quite a few processor instructions that I feel are important to know for reference. My advice is to pass on this book, unless you are completely new to the material, because it seems like a good learning text. Even still, you will eventually need a more authoritative reference guide for when you encounter the things this book doesn't cover (such as interfacing the PC hardware). Intel's "Software Developers Manuals" are freely available at their site in PDF, and I would suggest downloading all of those as your reference and purchasing Mazidi's book (now in fourth edition and NOT outdated anymore) for a few bucks more than this one.

Richard Detmer has done an excellent job of relating a very difficult subject! I originally signed up for a a class in assembly language my sophomore year. As a computer science major, the course is mandatory. Three weeks into the class I dropped it.....despite the instructors knowledge of the subject, the textbook we were using made no sense. I reregistered for the class the next semester, and the textbook had changed. Although I had to pay for a new textbook, the cost was well worth it! This book makes sense to the novice assembly programmer, and carries the reader well into an intermediate level of understanding of the subject. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning assembly programming on an 80x86 platform (which includes most non-embedded systems these days), or studying this material for a course. If you are taking a class in assembly, I would strongly suggest you use this textbook as a supplement.

This textbox was required for my first formal course in Assembly. I have been working/debugging in assembly for the past 5 yrs but never really had the foundations. The course I am taking and this box have certainly filled the gaps in fundamentals. The box is well written and brings you up to speed rather quickly. I highly recomend completing the exercises and debugging your own work... This box is 41 77 73 6F 6D 65 21 0D 0A

Great for getting to know more about lower level programming and computer architecture. Good book for a novice looking for the basic stuff - not a lot of stuff online for real lower level stuff as good quality as this.

Use this book in work. Was great point of reference for anyone who's interested in x86 assembly on Wndows. Would highly recommend for anyone who's looking to get into reverse engineers. Some great exercises included and solutions.