5 replies to this topic

[samishal]

Hello,

Just starting to learn TMS9900 assembly, just wondering if anyone had any good ideas for some mini projects to do in assembly?

Samishal

[adamantyr]

Welcome!

A good way to teach yourself assembly is to convert a simple BASIC program to assembly. I did this with TI-Trek awhile back:

http://www.adamantyr...isc/titrek.html

Adamantyr

[samishal]

Thanks man!

[matthew180]

IMO you should start with something that gives you visual feedback, since *seeing* something happen on the screen is good for motivation and your moral. Assembly can be intimidating when you are starting out, and it can sometimes be frustrating just trying to get something to run, let alone the results you want. Thus, start with simple things like clearing the screen. Then write a text message to the screen, like the traditional "Hello World". Finally animate a single character. After that, you might start looking in to how you can control moving that character with the joystick or keyboard.

There are a lot of assembly related posts in this forum, do a search or look back a few pages. Ask questions, and don't give up! :-)

[Vorticon]

matthew180, on Thu Nov 3, 2011 6:50 AM, said:

IMO you should start with something that gives you visual feedback, since *seeing* something happen on the screen is good for motivation and your moral. Assembly can be intimidating when you are starting out, and it can sometimes be frustrating just trying to get something to run, let alone the results you want. Thus, start with simple things like clearing the screen. Then write a text message to the screen, like the traditional "Hello World". Finally animate a single character. After that, you might start looking in to how you can control moving that character with the joystick or keyboard.

There are a lot of assembly related posts in this forum, do a search or look back a few pages. Ask questions, and don't give up! :-)

I would also add that this is a good time to document all the little routines you test out because you will likely need them in the future for larger programs. For example, you probably want a screen clearing routine, a keyboard input routine and a binary to ASCII routine to display data, just for starters. Remember that in assembly you will need to create all the essential utilities you take for granted in higher level languages, and if memory serves me correctly, the sooner you get these worked out, the easier your future programming will become. Good luck and keep at it because it's very rewarding in the end

[samishal]

Cheers, that does sound like a good idea to document the routines, thanks vorticcon and matthew180