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Ask HN: What's the best resource for learning modern x64 assembly?

492 points by ssklash 7y ago

I've found lots of resources for x86, but considerably less for x64. Pentester Academy has a promising course on it, along with shellcoding, but I'm not sure what else is out there.

oneplane 7y ago
As far as I know, x86_64 added instructions, modes and memory address changes but the assembly is the same? https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/introduction-to-x64-assembly https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/introduction-to-x6... I mean, you have different modes, and in 64-bit mode EAX becomes RAX for example.
- asveikau 7y ago
  I agree with this, if you are competent at 32-bit those skills are going to translate. It is mostly the same. Some exceptions that come to mind: * The old floating point stuff is gone. EDIT: guess I am wrong on that, was thinking of what compilers typically generate for the architecture. * The C abi now tends to focus on pass-by-register for the first few arguments. * If you are working in kernel mode, some stuff is going to necessarily look different.
  - acqq 7y ago
    > * The old floating point stuff is gone. It actually can be used, if you write by hand, at least in Windows.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > The old floating point stuff is gone. Do you mean x87? I’m not sure it’s true that it’s gone is it? The instructions are still documented? Do they not work?
    - asveikau 7y ago
      I guess I stand corrected. I was under the impression that C compilers don't tend to use it anymore when compiling for amd64. (Because you can assume SSE support on amd64, unlike a binary that might run on an old Pentium.) Then I misread that situation as it not working. It does take effort for an OS kernel to save and restore x87 state, so I could imagine somebody dropping support.
      - monocasa 7y ago
        > It does take effort for an OS kernel to save and restore x87 state, so I could imagine somebody dropping support. x86 makes it pretty easy on the kernel devs with XSAVE.
      - jcranmer 7y ago
        > It does take effort for an OS kernel to save and restore x87 state, so I could imagine somebody dropping support. FXSAVE saves the x87 state with the SSE state, and XSAVE generalizes that to add several optional components, depending on what your processor support (as of right now, AVX state, MPX state, 3 for AVX-512, PT state, and SGX state, IIRC).
blendergeek 7y ago
Here is a book on computer architecture that has a good section on x86-64 assembly language. Please note that I have edited this comment to reflect a change suggested by a cold comment. This book (the third edition) introduces x86-64 assembly very well. https://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/ https://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/
- abnercoimbre 7y ago
  Excellent recommendation, but why the 2nd edition? The home page[0] defaults to the latest one which is based on x64 from the get go. [0] https://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/ https://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/
  - blendergeek 7y ago
    First result in DDG for the book title ;-) But the third edition is the one I like. Thank you.
  - wadkar 7y ago
    Came here to recommend the same. You can find the 15-213 course videos online. I have done the course and can’t recommend it enough. Do the labs, sincerely. You’ll learn a lot!
- porknubbins 7y ago
  Working through this now (again) and its excellent. A few observations- do the labs (google them) they are even better. The lectures are also available on youtube and the recitations on something I found called panopto- they are mostly repetition from the book but nice to reinforce.
- nirvdrum 7y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation. I hadn't come across this one before. But wow, I forgot how expensive text books can be.
  - garren 7y ago
    I picked up the international edition on Amazon a while back for $20 or so, significantly less than what they’re asking for now. I don’t see that one on amazon today, but I’ve seen that edition on other sites. I’d look for it. I haven’t finished the 3rd edition, but I made it about 3/4 of the way through the 2nd edition and loved it. I picked up the 3rd specifically for the x64 material.
earenndil 7y ago
https://beginners.re/ https://beginners.re/
- xrayzerone 7y ago
  This is a great resource. Why is it getting downvoted?
- iou 7y ago
  ^^ this is the one
- DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
  this is hands-down among best that are out there (and it's free). It is known under 2 names[1] which might be a bit confusing but it _IS_ about assembly. see this HN thread (450+ points) discussing the book at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21640669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21640669 It is also constantly updated. This books is to ASSEMBLY what Richard W. Stevens is to TCP/IP and UNIX programming. Also it IS a beginners books because he makes no assumptions about the readers previous experience. It is very thorough so it's probably the only book you'll ever need on Assembly :) ___ [1] explanation from the author: > What is with two titles? The book was named “Reverse Engineering for Beginners” in 2014-2018, but I always suspected this makes readership too narrow. Infosec people know about “reverse engineering”, but I’ve rarely hear the “assembler” word from them. Likewise, the “reverse engineering” term is somewhat cryptic to a general audience of programmers, but they know about “assembler”. In July 2018, as an experiment, I’ve changed the title to “Assembly Language for Beginners” and posted the link to Hacker News website, and the book was received generally well. So let it be, the book now has two titles. However, I’ve changed the second title to “Understanding Assembly Language”, because someone had already written “Assembly Language for Beginners” book. Also, people say “for Beginners” sounds a bit sarcastic for a book of ~1000 pages.The two books differ only by title, filename (UAL-XX.pdf versus RE4B-XX.pdf), URL and a couple of the first pages
  - earenndil 7y ago
    > Also it IS a beginners books because he makes no assumptions about the readers previous experience I've just started going through it, and it's definitely made some assumptions about prior knowledge; I doubt I would have been able to get through it if I didn't already have some assembly knowledge.
PopeDotNinja 7y ago
For a soft intro to assembler, you can play video games Human Resource Machine.
- ssoroka 7y ago
  Or TIS-100
ajross 7y ago
Honestly? Learn old-style 8086 assembly, then 386 code. The new stuff may be architecturally simpler in many ways, but it sits as an edge case on top of a very thick historical stack that seems completely insane if you look at it a priori. But the early CPUs were actually quite simple! At the time "CISC" was a good thing because it provided straightforward mechanisms for expressing things (e.g. "push", "call", load a struct field with an offset...) that real world programmers needed to do all the time.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
  I think segmented memory really hampered my ability to learn 8086 assembly well. It really made a mess of just about everything.
  - CyberFonic 7y ago
    It also carries over to OS implementations. For example, many OS designed for the 386 failed to implement demand paging for which the CPU had some great support. I believe Windows continued using segmented addressing due to the backward compatibility with earlier releases of the OS.
  - ajross 7y ago
    It... kinda didn't though. I mean, yes, it seems complicated when you look back and ask "why can't it just have been a flat space", etc... But the same point persists: you have to look at what came before. Take a look at the complexities of 8080/Z80 or 6502 addressing modes, or the kind of tricks "big" 16 bit architectures like the PDP/11-70 were playing to stretch addressible memory. The 8086 was a breath of fresh air! Your code could be separate from your stack and from your heap, and all three could be a full 64k without any crazy bank switching or copying! And all you had to do was set up 4 segment selectors and then ignore them. And everything you were used to running did so in a clean, unconstrained environment. Really, read that 8086 datasheet again (it's like 8 pages), it was great stuff at the time.
Talinx 7y ago
This book is a good starting point for x86-64 Assembly with Linux: http://www.egr.unlv.edu/%7Eed/x86.html http://www.egr.unlv.edu/%7Eed/x86.html
tony_codes 7y ago
I wrote a guide a while back that may help. It includes a docker container setup to enable debugging via VS code: https://tonycodes.com/assembly https://tonycodes.com/assembly
snarfy 7y ago
Have you looked at the official docs? Back in 386 days that's all we had. https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm
- anonsivalley652 7y ago
  In 1993, as a broke high-school student pre-cell-phone and pre-search-engine, we didn't even have that (although we did have BBS phone-number/speeds/protocols/login lists). I had to take the nascent VTA Lightrail (when it was even more uncool) to Computer Literacy bookstore (when programming was also less cool) to find decent technical references... and I promptly dropped a few hundred bucks on dead tree carcasses when I was making minimum wage. Haha. X) - Programmer's PC Sourcebook - PC Intern - Undocumented PC - Undocumented DOS - Programmer's Guide to EGA, VGA ... - Michael Abrash books on assembly including self-modifying code and graphics programming - Turbo Assembler Quick Reference Guide - Code Complete Later, the MindShare series were really good.
  - wolco 7y ago
    In 1993 I was trying to learn c64 assembly still
  - snarfy 7y ago
    I remember those books. They were all helpful in teaching assembly, bios, and general pc programming like serial ports, etc. None of them really helped with 386 protected mode programming. GDT, LDT, selectors and descriptors, paging, etc. For that you really needed the official docs. I printed the 300+ page programmer's guide in the school lab which they were not too happy about.
basementcat 7y ago
I found compiler output to be a good resource. $ gcc foo.c -S
- eldavido 7y ago
  Maybe people think you're kidding with this response? By far the best way to learn IMO, write C and see how it translates.
- self_awareness 7y ago
  A little bit more convenient, at least for me: https://godbolt.org/ https://godbolt.org/
- versteegen 7y ago
  In order to get original source interspersed in the assembly, run gcc -c -g foo.c objdump -S foo.o
anonsivalley652 7y ago
There's no magic anywhere and 99.1% of it is documented. IA-32e/AMD64 is basically an extension of IA-32/x86. What you're looking for is to understand the difference between real mode, 386 protected mode, PAE, paging and long mode because the registers, instructions, addressing and sizes of structures differ. You can learn all of this by reading the Intel software manuals and digging into it yourself. Tools you need (for non-Windows): - gdb/lldb - assemblers: yasm, nasm, binutils (contains "as") Optional tools: - IDA Pro - Virtualization/emulation such as VMware Fusion/Workstation (because it supports being a gdbserver), VirtualBox or QEMU - Intel's CPUID app You also need good references like: - the Intel manual set (a giant PDF or a collection of several) https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm - https://sandpile.org https://sandpile.org (fairly current) - https://ref.x86asm.net https://ref.x86asm.net (outdated by useful) Another helpful exercise is writing a toy operating system in Rust or only assembly. https://osdev.org https://osdev.org has many resources and guides.
- Godel_unicode 7y ago
  In addition to IDA, I highly recommend looking into ghidra. It's open source, so you can peak under the hood and see how it does things. https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra
  - anonsivalley652 7y ago
    Yep. It's a FOSS-quality disassembler; good if you don't have IDA (I wish), supports maybe 10% of what IDA does in total but has some other niceities that it doesn't (think: disassembler-equivalent of LLVM). (Ideally, you'd have both.) For those who don't know, IDA disassembles basically every unclassified, commercially-available architecture and executable/library/object container format (think: disassembler-equivalent of GCC if it were an IBM or Green Hills product -:P). It also has a built-in scripting API in Python(?), IIRC. An interesting semi-abandonware static disassembler that was really good is Sourcer 8.01 from V-Communications. I think it supports Pentium II/Pro/III at most, which would include real, protected mode and long mode DOS/DOS extended/Win16/Win32 EXEs and COMs IIRC. It did a lot of memory typing and clever analysis long before IDA existed, and still interesting for retro computing. https://www.vetusware.com/download/Sourcer%208.01%208.01/?id=8677 https://www.vetusware.com/download/Sourcer%208.01%208.01/?id...
jng 7y ago
If you basically don't know how to code in assembly, learn 16-bit x86 with whichever method you find, it won't be wasted. You can extend most of the knowledge from 16 to 32 bit substituting register names ax,bx,cx,dx,si,di,bp,sp y eax,ebx,ecx,edx,esi,edi,ebp,esp. You can extend that to 64 bit with rax,rbx,rcx,rdx,rsi,rdi,rbp,rsp. Learning 16-bit x86 will have you learn about segment registers, but it isn't wasted either, protected mode consists of quite a lot of complications on segment registers, virtual memory addresses (which you can mostly ignore as an applications programmer as compared to a kernel or driver programmer), and interruptions. I wrote a book to learn x86 programming and it was published in 1994 back before "real digital age", oriented to be the best didactical text possible (I had to learn the hard way, I wrote what I would have had to read 10 years earlier). Over 20 reprints, recommended in all Spanish-speaking universities (yeah, I know, if I had known then what I know now I'd have done it in English). It was discontinued 10 years ago or so, they asked me to revise it for the modern world, and it didn't really make sense: rewriting it for what assembly language is and is used for in today's world would be a ton of work because it's a qualitative difference, and if I added an extra chapter explaining 32-bit and 64-bit changes and letting the publisher stamp a "2010 edition" logo on the cover would just be scamming people, which I don't want to do. Here is the link to a scanned copy of the original: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sz6rinfhyc8sai6/Lenguaje%20Ensamblador%20de%20los%2080x06%20-%20Jon%20Beltr%C3%A1n%20de%20Heredia.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/sz6rinfhyc8sai6/Lenguaje%20Ensambl... . Could prove useful if you can speak Spanish. Honestly: I learned Z80 assembly first, in the 80s, and then switched to x86 very easily. Learn whatever assembly language first, what's hard is learning about registers, flags, memory... and if you learn it will, then you can switch to another architecture quite easily.
- 2ton_jeff 7y ago
  I also learned Z80 first, and I can say categorically that learning 16-bit x86 is NOT a good idea. To do anything useful in 16-bit, register starvation is a constant. Segmentation issues are actually hard problems. I submit that if x64 existed early-on, no one would have bothered with higher-level abstractions. x64 is actually -pleasant- to code in natively.
- MaltSokol 7y ago
  Great book, Jon! Pretty much the only material in Spanish at the time. I remember it from my years in Uni.
htfy96 7y ago
For practice and user-mode stuffs https://godbolt.org/ https://godbolt.org/ is a valueless tool to help you view the output of any C program. Simply write any C program on the left, and add "-O1" in flag inputs. Assembly with color representing line-mappings would appear on the right.
- zelly 7y ago
  It's worth noting that the same thing can be had by doing objdump or stepping through code in gdb. Godbolt is very convenient though.
- mkl 7y ago
  > valueless You mean "invaluable" here (cannot be given a value, as it's too important). "valueless" is the opposite (worthless)! https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/valueless https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/valueless
  - copperx 7y ago
    Thanks. I had to read the original sentence multiple times; for a moment I thought I was having a stroke.
billfruit 7y ago
I would recommend 'Computer Systems: A Programmers Perspective' by Randal E Bryant and David O' Hallaron as an introduction before proceeding on to the official manuals and documentations. 3rd edition has much info on modern x86.
TACIXAT 7y ago
I plan on making some videos on this once I get through web vulns. I've written x64 on Windows and Linux. On Windows you need to get ml64.exe, it gets installed with visual studio. You can invoke it from the command line. On Linux I usually use NASM I think, cause it supports Intel syntax. The only really annoying thing is the stack alignment for calls. I usually just make a macro to check rsp and align if needed. Other than that I think it is similar enough to x86 just with different registers.
eldavido 7y ago
It really depends on your starting point. If you know how to write low-level C (i.e. with direct Win32/POSIX API calls), that's a good start. If you don't know what that means, you need to master this first. So much of assembly is built to support higher-level programming, things like segments, indirect references, system calls, etc., so it pays to know the WHY of all of it (e.g. do you know what a frame pointer is? why it's useful and can sometimes be omitted)? Learn this stuff first. Once you have a good handle on C, you need to start learning how operating systems and memory management work, at least the "client side" of them accessible from userspace. Then you might want to dip your toe into how CPUs are built, with pipelines, registers, caches, all of that. If you've mastered those things, gcc -S will provide everything else you need (another comment suggested this). I learned this stuff in a traditional university computer engineering program. It helped a lot. But for context, this question feels a little like, "can someone explain quantum physics"? It's a huge topic but only like 5% is the actual thing you're asking about, the other 95% is the conceptual machinery (calculus, probability, mechanics) it's built on. Mastering all the other stuff is actually the hard part. For all intents and purposes, assembly is just a notational convenience for expressing program structure in the only way a CPU can understand it. At least 90% of the difficulty is understanding how CPUs work, and how to think at sufficiently low level that you can express human-useful work at such a low level of abstraction. It would also be nice to know why you want to know this. Writing a device driver is going to be different from writing an operating system, which will be different from writing tight numerical loops in assembly. And in any case, dollars to donuts you won't be able to beat a modern optimizing compiler performance-wise. Hope this helps.
- Nightshaxx 7y ago
  How can I get started on learning the low level c stuff with direct system calls and such. I learned about assembly, pipelining, cache, and memory allocation during a systems architecture course, so I'm really interested in the low level of the machine. The problem is I don't really have an idea of a project that I could do to learn the level right above. Of course I learned a bit during the course, but I really want to get a solid grasp.
  - 7y ago
rboes2 7y ago
I thought this book was pretty good when I took computer architecture course. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Assembly-Language-x86-Processors-7th/dp/0133769402&ved=2ahUKEwiVsdHOy8PnAhVROH0KHbLeBlkQFjAIegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw3Gwhnbo6SX5LuOprpzZzFo https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
vasili111 7y ago
Maybe not modern but a goood introduction "Assembly Language Step-by-Step". Good for self study.
moggi 7y ago
Especially if you need x64 assembly for performance optimization or during profiling a combination of godbolt (https://godbolt.org/ https://godbolt.org/) and Agner Fog's incredible PDFs at https://agner.org/optimize/ https://agner.org/optimize/ (especially parts 2, 3 and 4) are helpful. The other useful step has been to write C functions and compile the code with a good compiler (good experiences with Intel, gcc and llvm) first at -O0 and later at -O2 or -O3 to understand how high level concepts can be translated to assembly. This requires to have at least a basic understanding of registers and basic assembly concepts but at least has helped me apply the concepts to real code.
zelly 7y ago
It looks intimidating, but there's not actually much to learn. You need to memorize a couple dozen common opcodes. Keep the Intel manual open and flip to the page of the opcode. Also the first few sections go into detail about paging, data types, CPUs, etc. if you don't already know about it. https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm Try to reverse engineer something you don't have the debug symbols for. One of the big pain points was figuring out the calling convention i.e. what registers correspond to which function arguments on different platforms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_calling_conventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_calling_conventions For reverse engineering in particular, this was a good resource: https://beginners.re/ https://beginners.re/
rramadass 7y ago
Assuming you are interested in learning not just Assembly but how to use it in conjunction with a high-level language (almost always C/C++); Background: --- Matt Pietrek's "Just Enough Assembly Language to Get By" - http://bytepointer.com/resources/pietrek_asm_pt1.htm http://bytepointer.com/resources/pietrek_asm_pt1.htm --- Hongjiu Lu "ELF: From The Programmer's Perspective" - http://beefchunk.com/documentation/sys-programming/binary_formats/elf/elf_from_the_programmers_perspective/elf.html http://beefchunk.com/documentation/sys-programming/binary_fo... Books: --- Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective (3rd Edition) by Bryant & O'Hallaron - https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspective-3rd/dp/013409266X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=26HEH06VOP2XL&keywords=computer+systems+a+programmer%27s+perspective+3rd+edition&qid=1581230329&s=books&sprefix=computer+ssytems%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C515&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspect... --- Modern X86 Assembly Language Programming by Daniel Kusswurm - https://www.amazon.com/Modern-X86-Assembly-Language-Programming/dp/1484240626/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=modern+x86&qid=1581228086&s=books&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Modern-X86-Assembly-Language-Programm... --- Low-Level Programming by Igor Zhirkov - https://www.amazon.com/Low-Level-Programming-Assembly-Execution-Architecture/dp/1484224027/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Y2MOWSFXW7TL&keywords=low-level+programming&qid=1581229802&s=books&sprefix=Low-level+progr%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C512&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Low-Level-Programming-Assembly-Execut...
2ton_jeff 7y ago
I wrote a Linux general purpose library for x64 assembler: https://2ton.com.au/HeavyThing/ https://2ton.com.au/HeavyThing/ and in recent months I decided to start doing video tutorials about the "how and why" of same. Learning I think is made easiest in Linux by learning how to navigate the syscall interface and how "man 2 write" becomes an important skill. Edit: Videos link as well: https://2ton.com.au/videos/ https://2ton.com.au/videos/
official151 7y ago
http://www.jobsfinderuae.com/ http://www.jobsfinderuae.com/
pjmlp 7y ago
Others already have given plenty of useful information, I just have a basic one. Stay with Intel syntax, nevermind about AT&T syntax, beyond learning on how to read it. PC world is all about Intel syntax, AT&T is lower level on how instructions get expressed and Assemblers macro capabilities just suck compared with what TASM and MASM were already capable of on the MS-DOS days.
akullpp 7y ago
I recommend [Paul Carter's PC Assembly](http://pacman128.github.io/pcasm/ http://pacman128.github.io/pcasm/) which helped me getting started back in my pentesting days.
fouc 7y ago
I know this isn't quite what you're asking, but I really recommend "Assembly Language Step By Step, Third Edition" by Jeff Duntemann One of the best 32bit x86 assembly books out there.
- vaylian 7y ago
  > One of the best 32bit x86 assembly books out there. I think it is one of the best books about fundamental computer programming overall. Even if you don't program in assembly afterwards, you will take away a much better understanding of how computers operate. Sure, it is still a beginner book and it doesn't go into much detail, but the parts it explains, it explains very well.
vnorilo 7y ago
Your sources indicate an interest in reverse engineering, but another motivator for low level machine programming is performance. For me, a great way of learning the latter is to pick a task with some instant gratification (audio dsp, software texmapping or shaders?) and start writing some of that in inline assembly. I suggest looking at your C compiler output, learning about SIMD instructions and using a pipeline simulator to see why and how it performs like it does. I used VTune and AMD Codeanalyst back in the day, don't know what's the current SoA.
blackmail 7y ago
book link -> http://vkh8ilkvln.pdfcloud.org/dl2.php?id=174628357&h=7a0f1670c910af068e4a1eb90a0662c4&u=cache&ext=pdf&n=Assembly%20language%20for%20x86%20processors%207th%20editionpdf http://vkh8ilkvln.pdfcloud.org/dl2.php?id=174628357&h=7a0f16... video link -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtWKlgEi9js&list=PLXYpRL4SQpMnHL0c6PwSKAHCId3F6uVwi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtWKlgEi9js&list=PLXYpRL4SQp... linker -> http://www.masm32.com/ http://www.masm32.com/ some way to understand assembly lang
TheUndead96 7y ago
I used this book in university, and it was very informative: http://rayseyfarth.com/asm/ http://rayseyfarth.com/asm/
markwrobel 7y ago
As others points out NAND to Tetris is a really good entry point to learn assembly. It begins with you designing the hardware from NAND gates. You will make all hardware components like memory, instruction decoder, ALU, and CPU, and put them together into a computer. The next step is to build a virtual machine and then a compiler for a high-level language called Jack. The keystone project is to build a game in Jack and have it run on the computer that you build :) https://www.nand2tetris.org/ https://www.nand2tetris.org/ I have since then ventured into Motorola 68000 assembly coding, by reading an old Amiga course in machine code from the late 80'ties. It's fascinating to learn from an old platform like the Amiga 500. To keep myself motivated, I have written a lot of posts that chronicles my progress through the course. https://www.markwrobel.dk/project/amigamachinecode/ https://www.markwrobel.dk/project/amigamachinecode/ EDIT: I can also recommend this game, that is inspired by NAND to Tetris. Where you build the hardware in your browser :) http://www.nandgame.com/ http://www.nandgame.com/
open86 7y ago
So when do the patents expire on x86? And can we do a clean room version?
screed 7y ago
Start with this one: "Reverse Engineering for Beginners" https://torus.company/writings/RE4B-EN.pdf https://torus.company/writings/RE4B-EN.pdf
karpos 7y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code:_The_Hidden_Language_of_Computer_Hardware_and_Software https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code:_The_Hidden_Language_of...
kristov 7y ago
I'm learning Z80 for programming the rc2014 kit (it's really nice kit if your also into electronics). There is a surprising lack of information online about the techniques of programming. For me that's the biggest struggle. You can know the instructions but juggling registers in an optimal way is hard. I'm currently learning I can use the stack inside a routine to have more values in the air at the same time, but then I read some example code and learn a particular instruction can be used in a clever way to avoid all my stack juggling. I am finding it can take hours to write a simple routine. I really get it now when people write it's a non-trivial problem to map C to assembly (especially Z80). Hell, it's fun though! Screw all these high level languages, let's do everything in assembly and damn the horses!!
znpy 7y ago
"Assembly Language Step-by-Step Third Edition" 3rd Edition by Jeff Duntemann is a great book. It starts with the very foundation and builds up, up to interfacing with C and implementing data structures, still in assembly. Sadly, this book still references 32-bit ISA. My guess is that the author got old enough not to bother updating the book anymore (the first editions of the book were about assembly programming in DOS, then DOS and Linux, then Linux only). Still a very valid book, as x86-64 is backwards-compatible with 32-bit x86. Also, as somebody else has written, once you understand the basics, you can mostly swap things like register names and/or look to the reference pages of your cpu/linker/assembler.
_d03 7y ago
There are some books suited for beginners and these are: 1. https://www.amazon.com/Low-Level-Programming-Assembly-Execution-Architecture/dp/1484224027/ https://www.amazon.com/Low-Level-Programming-Assembly-Execut... 2. http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~ed/assembly64.pdf http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~ed/assembly64.pdf 3. https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Bit-Assembly-Programming-Linux/dp/1484921909/ https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Bit-Assembly-Programming... The first one is somewhat written in "weird English" (Russian English?), but it is still readable. It really helped me with x64 assembly as a C programmer. I have used 2 and 3 as reference most of the time and the first was basically my "main x64 assembly book". I would also recommend getting more proficient in C programming either by studying books such as "Expert C" and the "The C Programming Language" or reading "advanced" stuff somewhere on the Internet, e.g.: http://www.pvv.org/~oma/DeepC_slides_oct2011.pdf http://www.pvv.org/~oma/DeepC_slides_oct2011.pdf The main takeaway in all this for me was learning about the call stack and the different calling conventions which gives you a clue on how recursion works under the hood. Also when you are done learning about "practical computer architecture", i.e. assembly language programming, learn stuff about operating systems as well: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/ http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/ Fun fact: this is not really related to assembly programming, but functions such as setjmp() and longjmp() are used for implementing exception handling.
rawoke083600 7y ago
Stupid question... can you use assembly for GPU coding ? I mean like in a semi-practical way ?
vips7L 7y ago
Not x86_64 but Xeno Kovah's courses were really great to teach me x86: http://opensecuritytraining.info/IntroX86.html http://opensecuritytraining.info/IntroX86.html
justin66 7y ago
Kip Irvine's textbook on the subject is good. It's oriented towards Visual Studio (good, easy debugging) and windows but a fellow student had no problem using Linux tools to follow along and complete the course, which is not a bad way learn. It's useful to at least look at such a textbook to make sure you don't skip any of the easy, sort-of prerequisite material.
Grimm1 7y ago
I learned x86 from Xeno Kovah's course and I imagine his x64 will be just as comprehensive. It looks like his x64 is just slides instead of videos which may be better, sitting through 16hrs of video when I was learning x86 was ... an experience, but a very useful one. Anyway, whenever someone asks this question I don't hesitate to bring up his work and trainings I think they're really useful. I know this is for reverse engineering but if you can reverse engineer x64 you can certainly write it. http://opensecuritytraining.info/IntroX86-64.html http://opensecuritytraining.info/IntroX86-64.html
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
I wish there were an equivalent of "core war" [0]. I "played" with it ~30 years ago and I still remember a good chunk of the language. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War
JTechno 7y ago
x86-64 Assembly Language Programming with Ubuntu By Ed Jorgensen http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~ed/x86.html http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~ed/x86.html
vkaku 7y ago
We also got plenty of general purpose registers in x64, apart from the rax stuff. Plus, you now have the ymm and possibly zmm stuff going on :)
ifoundthetao 7y ago
I enjoyed the Pentester Academy course, and have recommended it several times.
Digg_mov 7y ago
i have no thinkint

492 points by ssklash 7y ago

I've found lots of resources for x86, but considerably less for x64. Pentester Academy has a promising course on it, along with shellcoding, but I'm not sure what else is out there.

oneplane 7y ago

As far as I know, x86_64 added instructions, modes and memory address changes but the assembly is the same? https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/introduction-to-x64-assembly https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/introduction-to-x6... I mean, you have different modes, and in 64-bit mode EAX becomes RAX for example.

asveikau 7y ago
I agree with this, if you are competent at 32-bit those skills are going to translate. It is mostly the same. Some exceptions that come to mind: * The old floating point stuff is gone. EDIT: guess I am wrong on that, was thinking of what compilers typically generate for the architecture. * The C abi now tends to focus on pass-by-register for the first few arguments. * If you are working in kernel mode, some stuff is going to necessarily look different.
- acqq 7y ago
  > * The old floating point stuff is gone. It actually can be used, if you write by hand, at least in Windows.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > The old floating point stuff is gone. Do you mean x87? I’m not sure it’s true that it’s gone is it? The instructions are still documented? Do they not work?
  - asveikau 7y ago
    I guess I stand corrected. I was under the impression that C compilers don't tend to use it anymore when compiling for amd64. (Because you can assume SSE support on amd64, unlike a binary that might run on an old Pentium.) Then I misread that situation as it not working. It does take effort for an OS kernel to save and restore x87 state, so I could imagine somebody dropping support.
    - monocasa 7y ago
      > It does take effort for an OS kernel to save and restore x87 state, so I could imagine somebody dropping support. x86 makes it pretty easy on the kernel devs with XSAVE.
    - jcranmer 7y ago
      > It does take effort for an OS kernel to save and restore x87 state, so I could imagine somebody dropping support. FXSAVE saves the x87 state with the SSE state, and XSAVE generalizes that to add several optional components, depending on what your processor support (as of right now, AVX state, MPX state, 3 for AVX-512, PT state, and SGX state, IIRC).

blendergeek 7y ago

Here is a book on computer architecture that has a good section on x86-64 assembly language. Please note that I have edited this comment to reflect a change suggested by a cold comment. This book (the third edition) introduces x86-64 assembly very well. https://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/ https://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/

abnercoimbre 7y ago
Excellent recommendation, but why the 2nd edition? The home page[0] defaults to the latest one which is based on x64 from the get go. [0] https://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/ https://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/
- blendergeek 7y ago
  First result in DDG for the book title ;-) But the third edition is the one I like. Thank you.
- wadkar 7y ago
  Came here to recommend the same. You can find the 15-213 course videos online. I have done the course and can’t recommend it enough. Do the labs, sincerely. You’ll learn a lot!
porknubbins 7y ago
Working through this now (again) and its excellent. A few observations- do the labs (google them) they are even better. The lectures are also available on youtube and the recitations on something I found called panopto- they are mostly repetition from the book but nice to reinforce.
nirvdrum 7y ago
Thanks for the recommendation. I hadn't come across this one before. But wow, I forgot how expensive text books can be.
- garren 7y ago
  I picked up the international edition on Amazon a while back for $20 or so, significantly less than what they’re asking for now. I don’t see that one on amazon today, but I’ve seen that edition on other sites. I’d look for it. I haven’t finished the 3rd edition, but I made it about 3/4 of the way through the 2nd edition and loved it. I picked up the 3rd specifically for the x64 material.

earenndil 7y ago

https://beginners.re/ https://beginners.re/

xrayzerone 7y ago
This is a great resource. Why is it getting downvoted?
iou 7y ago
^^ this is the one
DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
this is hands-down among best that are out there (and it's free). It is known under 2 names[1] which might be a bit confusing but it _IS_ about assembly. see this HN thread (450+ points) discussing the book at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21640669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21640669 It is also constantly updated. This books is to ASSEMBLY what Richard W. Stevens is to TCP/IP and UNIX programming. Also it IS a beginners books because he makes no assumptions about the readers previous experience. It is very thorough so it's probably the only book you'll ever need on Assembly :) ___ [1] explanation from the author: > What is with two titles? The book was named “Reverse Engineering for Beginners” in 2014-2018, but I always suspected this makes readership too narrow. Infosec people know about “reverse engineering”, but I’ve rarely hear the “assembler” word from them. Likewise, the “reverse engineering” term is somewhat cryptic to a general audience of programmers, but they know about “assembler”. In July 2018, as an experiment, I’ve changed the title to “Assembly Language for Beginners” and posted the link to Hacker News website, and the book was received generally well. So let it be, the book now has two titles. However, I’ve changed the second title to “Understanding Assembly Language”, because someone had already written “Assembly Language for Beginners” book. Also, people say “for Beginners” sounds a bit sarcastic for a book of ~1000 pages.The two books differ only by title, filename (UAL-XX.pdf versus RE4B-XX.pdf), URL and a couple of the first pages
- earenndil 7y ago
  > Also it IS a beginners books because he makes no assumptions about the readers previous experience I've just started going through it, and it's definitely made some assumptions about prior knowledge; I doubt I would have been able to get through it if I didn't already have some assembly knowledge.

PopeDotNinja 7y ago

For a soft intro to assembler, you can play video games Human Resource Machine.

ssoroka 7y ago
Or TIS-100

ajross 7y ago

Honestly? Learn old-style 8086 assembly, then 386 code. The new stuff may be architecturally simpler in many ways, but it sits as an edge case on top of a very thick historical stack that seems completely insane if you look at it a priori. But the early CPUs were actually quite simple! At the time "CISC" was a good thing because it provided straightforward mechanisms for expressing things (e.g. "push", "call", load a struct field with an offset...) that real world programmers needed to do all the time.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
I think segmented memory really hampered my ability to learn 8086 assembly well. It really made a mess of just about everything.
- CyberFonic 7y ago
  It also carries over to OS implementations. For example, many OS designed for the 386 failed to implement demand paging for which the CPU had some great support. I believe Windows continued using segmented addressing due to the backward compatibility with earlier releases of the OS.
- ajross 7y ago
  It... kinda didn't though. I mean, yes, it seems complicated when you look back and ask "why can't it just have been a flat space", etc... But the same point persists: you have to look at what came before. Take a look at the complexities of 8080/Z80 or 6502 addressing modes, or the kind of tricks "big" 16 bit architectures like the PDP/11-70 were playing to stretch addressible memory. The 8086 was a breath of fresh air! Your code could be separate from your stack and from your heap, and all three could be a full 64k without any crazy bank switching or copying! And all you had to do was set up 4 segment selectors and then ignore them. And everything you were used to running did so in a clean, unconstrained environment. Really, read that 8086 datasheet again (it's like 8 pages), it was great stuff at the time.

Talinx 7y ago

This book is a good starting point for x86-64 Assembly with Linux: http://www.egr.unlv.edu/%7Eed/x86.html http://www.egr.unlv.edu/%7Eed/x86.html

tony_codes 7y ago

I wrote a guide a while back that may help. It includes a docker container setup to enable debugging via VS code: https://tonycodes.com/assembly https://tonycodes.com/assembly

snarfy 7y ago

Have you looked at the official docs? Back in 386 days that's all we had. https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm

anonsivalley652 7y ago
In 1993, as a broke high-school student pre-cell-phone and pre-search-engine, we didn't even have that (although we did have BBS phone-number/speeds/protocols/login lists). I had to take the nascent VTA Lightrail (when it was even more uncool) to Computer Literacy bookstore (when programming was also less cool) to find decent technical references... and I promptly dropped a few hundred bucks on dead tree carcasses when I was making minimum wage. Haha. X) - Programmer's PC Sourcebook - PC Intern - Undocumented PC - Undocumented DOS - Programmer's Guide to EGA, VGA ... - Michael Abrash books on assembly including self-modifying code and graphics programming - Turbo Assembler Quick Reference Guide - Code Complete Later, the MindShare series were really good.
- wolco 7y ago
  In 1993 I was trying to learn c64 assembly still
- snarfy 7y ago
  I remember those books. They were all helpful in teaching assembly, bios, and general pc programming like serial ports, etc. None of them really helped with 386 protected mode programming. GDT, LDT, selectors and descriptors, paging, etc. For that you really needed the official docs. I printed the 300+ page programmer's guide in the school lab which they were not too happy about.

basementcat 7y ago

I found compiler output to be a good resource. $ gcc foo.c -S

eldavido 7y ago
Maybe people think you're kidding with this response? By far the best way to learn IMO, write C and see how it translates.
self_awareness 7y ago
A little bit more convenient, at least for me: https://godbolt.org/ https://godbolt.org/
versteegen 7y ago
In order to get original source interspersed in the assembly, run gcc -c -g foo.c objdump -S foo.o

anonsivalley652 7y ago

There's no magic anywhere and 99.1% of it is documented. IA-32e/AMD64 is basically an extension of IA-32/x86. What you're looking for is to understand the difference between real mode, 386 protected mode, PAE, paging and long mode because the registers, instructions, addressing and sizes of structures differ. You can learn all of this by reading the Intel software manuals and digging into it yourself. Tools you need (for non-Windows): - gdb/lldb - assemblers: yasm, nasm, binutils (contains "as") Optional tools: - IDA Pro - Virtualization/emulation such as VMware Fusion/Workstation (because it supports being a gdbserver), VirtualBox or QEMU - Intel's CPUID app You also need good references like: - the Intel manual set (a giant PDF or a collection of several) https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm - https://sandpile.org https://sandpile.org (fairly current) - https://ref.x86asm.net https://ref.x86asm.net (outdated by useful) Another helpful exercise is writing a toy operating system in Rust or only assembly. https://osdev.org https://osdev.org has many resources and guides.

Godel_unicode 7y ago
In addition to IDA, I highly recommend looking into ghidra. It's open source, so you can peak under the hood and see how it does things. https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra
- anonsivalley652 7y ago
  Yep. It's a FOSS-quality disassembler; good if you don't have IDA (I wish), supports maybe 10% of what IDA does in total but has some other niceities that it doesn't (think: disassembler-equivalent of LLVM). (Ideally, you'd have both.) For those who don't know, IDA disassembles basically every unclassified, commercially-available architecture and executable/library/object container format (think: disassembler-equivalent of GCC if it were an IBM or Green Hills product -:P). It also has a built-in scripting API in Python(?), IIRC. An interesting semi-abandonware static disassembler that was really good is Sourcer 8.01 from V-Communications. I think it supports Pentium II/Pro/III at most, which would include real, protected mode and long mode DOS/DOS extended/Win16/Win32 EXEs and COMs IIRC. It did a lot of memory typing and clever analysis long before IDA existed, and still interesting for retro computing. https://www.vetusware.com/download/Sourcer%208.01%208.01/?id=8677 https://www.vetusware.com/download/Sourcer%208.01%208.01/?id...

jng 7y ago

If you basically don't know how to code in assembly, learn 16-bit x86 with whichever method you find, it won't be wasted. You can extend most of the knowledge from 16 to 32 bit substituting register names ax,bx,cx,dx,si,di,bp,sp y eax,ebx,ecx,edx,esi,edi,ebp,esp. You can extend that to 64 bit with rax,rbx,rcx,rdx,rsi,rdi,rbp,rsp. Learning 16-bit x86 will have you learn about segment registers, but it isn't wasted either, protected mode consists of quite a lot of complications on segment registers, virtual memory addresses (which you can mostly ignore as an applications programmer as compared to a kernel or driver programmer), and interruptions. I wrote a book to learn x86 programming and it was published in 1994 back before "real digital age", oriented to be the best didactical text possible (I had to learn the hard way, I wrote what I would have had to read 10 years earlier). Over 20 reprints, recommended in all Spanish-speaking universities (yeah, I know, if I had known then what I know now I'd have done it in English). It was discontinued 10 years ago or so, they asked me to revise it for the modern world, and it didn't really make sense: rewriting it for what assembly language is and is used for in today's world would be a ton of work because it's a qualitative difference, and if I added an extra chapter explaining 32-bit and 64-bit changes and letting the publisher stamp a "2010 edition" logo on the cover would just be scamming people, which I don't want to do. Here is the link to a scanned copy of the original: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sz6rinfhyc8sai6/Lenguaje%20Ensamblador%20de%20los%2080x06%20-%20Jon%20Beltr%C3%A1n%20de%20Heredia.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/sz6rinfhyc8sai6/Lenguaje%20Ensambl... . Could prove useful if you can speak Spanish. Honestly: I learned Z80 assembly first, in the 80s, and then switched to x86 very easily. Learn whatever assembly language first, what's hard is learning about registers, flags, memory... and if you learn it will, then you can switch to another architecture quite easily.

2ton_jeff 7y ago
I also learned Z80 first, and I can say categorically that learning 16-bit x86 is NOT a good idea. To do anything useful in 16-bit, register starvation is a constant. Segmentation issues are actually hard problems. I submit that if x64 existed early-on, no one would have bothered with higher-level abstractions. x64 is actually -pleasant- to code in natively.
MaltSokol 7y ago
Great book, Jon! Pretty much the only material in Spanish at the time. I remember it from my years in Uni.

htfy96 7y ago

For practice and user-mode stuffs https://godbolt.org/ https://godbolt.org/ is a valueless tool to help you view the output of any C program. Simply write any C program on the left, and add "-O1" in flag inputs. Assembly with color representing line-mappings would appear on the right.

zelly 7y ago
It's worth noting that the same thing can be had by doing objdump or stepping through code in gdb. Godbolt is very convenient though.
mkl 7y ago
> valueless You mean "invaluable" here (cannot be given a value, as it's too important). "valueless" is the opposite (worthless)! https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/valueless https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/valueless
- copperx 7y ago
  Thanks. I had to read the original sentence multiple times; for a moment I thought I was having a stroke.

billfruit 7y ago

I would recommend 'Computer Systems: A Programmers Perspective' by Randal E Bryant and David O' Hallaron as an introduction before proceeding on to the official manuals and documentations. 3rd edition has much info on modern x86.

TACIXAT 7y ago

I plan on making some videos on this once I get through web vulns. I've written x64 on Windows and Linux. On Windows you need to get ml64.exe, it gets installed with visual studio. You can invoke it from the command line. On Linux I usually use NASM I think, cause it supports Intel syntax. The only really annoying thing is the stack alignment for calls. I usually just make a macro to check rsp and align if needed. Other than that I think it is similar enough to x86 just with different registers.

eldavido 7y ago

It really depends on your starting point. If you know how to write low-level C (i.e. with direct Win32/POSIX API calls), that's a good start. If you don't know what that means, you need to master this first. So much of assembly is built to support higher-level programming, things like segments, indirect references, system calls, etc., so it pays to know the WHY of all of it (e.g. do you know what a frame pointer is? why it's useful and can sometimes be omitted)? Learn this stuff first. Once you have a good handle on C, you need to start learning how operating systems and memory management work, at least the "client side" of them accessible from userspace. Then you might want to dip your toe into how CPUs are built, with pipelines, registers, caches, all of that. If you've mastered those things, gcc -S will provide everything else you need (another comment suggested this). I learned this stuff in a traditional university computer engineering program. It helped a lot. But for context, this question feels a little like, "can someone explain quantum physics"? It's a huge topic but only like 5% is the actual thing you're asking about, the other 95% is the conceptual machinery (calculus, probability, mechanics) it's built on. Mastering all the other stuff is actually the hard part. For all intents and purposes, assembly is just a notational convenience for expressing program structure in the only way a CPU can understand it. At least 90% of the difficulty is understanding how CPUs work, and how to think at sufficiently low level that you can express human-useful work at such a low level of abstraction. It would also be nice to know why you want to know this. Writing a device driver is going to be different from writing an operating system, which will be different from writing tight numerical loops in assembly. And in any case, dollars to donuts you won't be able to beat a modern optimizing compiler performance-wise. Hope this helps.

Nightshaxx 7y ago
How can I get started on learning the low level c stuff with direct system calls and such. I learned about assembly, pipelining, cache, and memory allocation during a systems architecture course, so I'm really interested in the low level of the machine. The problem is I don't really have an idea of a project that I could do to learn the level right above. Of course I learned a bit during the course, but I really want to get a solid grasp.
- 7y ago

rboes2 7y ago

I thought this book was pretty good when I took computer architecture course. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Assembly-Language-x86-Processors-7th/dp/0133769402&ved=2ahUKEwiVsdHOy8PnAhVROH0KHbLeBlkQFjAIegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw3Gwhnbo6SX5LuOprpzZzFo https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

vasili111 7y ago

Maybe not modern but a goood introduction "Assembly Language Step-by-Step". Good for self study.

moggi 7y ago

Especially if you need x64 assembly for performance optimization or during profiling a combination of godbolt (https://godbolt.org/ https://godbolt.org/) and Agner Fog's incredible PDFs at https://agner.org/optimize/ https://agner.org/optimize/ (especially parts 2, 3 and 4) are helpful. The other useful step has been to write C functions and compile the code with a good compiler (good experiences with Intel, gcc and llvm) first at -O0 and later at -O2 or -O3 to understand how high level concepts can be translated to assembly. This requires to have at least a basic understanding of registers and basic assembly concepts but at least has helped me apply the concepts to real code.

zelly 7y ago

It looks intimidating, but there's not actually much to learn. You need to memorize a couple dozen common opcodes. Keep the Intel manual open and flip to the page of the opcode. Also the first few sections go into detail about paging, data types, CPUs, etc. if you don't already know about it. https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-sdm Try to reverse engineer something you don't have the debug symbols for. One of the big pain points was figuring out the calling convention i.e. what registers correspond to which function arguments on different platforms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_calling_conventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_calling_conventions For reverse engineering in particular, this was a good resource: https://beginners.re/ https://beginners.re/

rramadass 7y ago

Assuming you are interested in learning not just Assembly but how to use it in conjunction with a high-level language (almost always C/C++); Background: --- Matt Pietrek's "Just Enough Assembly Language to Get By" - http://bytepointer.com/resources/pietrek_asm_pt1.htm http://bytepointer.com/resources/pietrek_asm_pt1.htm --- Hongjiu Lu "ELF: From The Programmer's Perspective" - http://beefchunk.com/documentation/sys-programming/binary_formats/elf/elf_from_the_programmers_perspective/elf.html http://beefchunk.com/documentation/sys-programming/binary_fo... Books: --- Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective (3rd Edition) by Bryant & O'Hallaron - https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspective-3rd/dp/013409266X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=26HEH06VOP2XL&keywords=computer+systems+a+programmer%27s+perspective+3rd+edition&qid=1581230329&s=books&sprefix=computer+ssytems%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C515&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspect... --- Modern X86 Assembly Language Programming by Daniel Kusswurm - https://www.amazon.com/Modern-X86-Assembly-Language-Programming/dp/1484240626/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=modern+x86&qid=1581228086&s=books&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Modern-X86-Assembly-Language-Programm... --- Low-Level Programming by Igor Zhirkov - https://www.amazon.com/Low-Level-Programming-Assembly-Execution-Architecture/dp/1484224027/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Y2MOWSFXW7TL&keywords=low-level+programming&qid=1581229802&s=books&sprefix=Low-level+progr%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C512&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Low-Level-Programming-Assembly-Execut...

2ton_jeff 7y ago

I wrote a Linux general purpose library for x64 assembler: https://2ton.com.au/HeavyThing/ https://2ton.com.au/HeavyThing/ and in recent months I decided to start doing video tutorials about the "how and why" of same. Learning I think is made easiest in Linux by learning how to navigate the syscall interface and how "man 2 write" becomes an important skill. Edit: Videos link as well: https://2ton.com.au/videos/ https://2ton.com.au/videos/

official151 7y ago

http://www.jobsfinderuae.com/ http://www.jobsfinderuae.com/

pjmlp 7y ago

Others already have given plenty of useful information, I just have a basic one. Stay with Intel syntax, nevermind about AT&T syntax, beyond learning on how to read it. PC world is all about Intel syntax, AT&T is lower level on how instructions get expressed and Assemblers macro capabilities just suck compared with what TASM and MASM were already capable of on the MS-DOS days.

akullpp 7y ago

I recommend [Paul Carter's PC Assembly](http://pacman128.github.io/pcasm/ http://pacman128.github.io/pcasm/) which helped me getting started back in my pentesting days.

fouc 7y ago

I know this isn't quite what you're asking, but I really recommend "Assembly Language Step By Step, Third Edition" by Jeff Duntemann One of the best 32bit x86 assembly books out there.

vaylian 7y ago
> One of the best 32bit x86 assembly books out there. I think it is one of the best books about fundamental computer programming overall. Even if you don't program in assembly afterwards, you will take away a much better understanding of how computers operate. Sure, it is still a beginner book and it doesn't go into much detail, but the parts it explains, it explains very well.

vnorilo 7y ago

Your sources indicate an interest in reverse engineering, but another motivator for low level machine programming is performance. For me, a great way of learning the latter is to pick a task with some instant gratification (audio dsp, software texmapping or shaders?) and start writing some of that in inline assembly. I suggest looking at your C compiler output, learning about SIMD instructions and using a pipeline simulator to see why and how it performs like it does. I used VTune and AMD Codeanalyst back in the day, don't know what's the current SoA.

blackmail 7y ago

book link -> http://vkh8ilkvln.pdfcloud.org/dl2.php?id=174628357&h=7a0f1670c910af068e4a1eb90a0662c4&u=cache&ext=pdf&n=Assembly%20language%20for%20x86%20processors%207th%20editionpdf http://vkh8ilkvln.pdfcloud.org/dl2.php?id=174628357&h=7a0f16... video link -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtWKlgEi9js&list=PLXYpRL4SQpMnHL0c6PwSKAHCId3F6uVwi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtWKlgEi9js&list=PLXYpRL4SQp... linker -> http://www.masm32.com/ http://www.masm32.com/ some way to understand assembly lang

TheUndead96 7y ago

I used this book in university, and it was very informative: http://rayseyfarth.com/asm/ http://rayseyfarth.com/asm/

markwrobel 7y ago

As others points out NAND to Tetris is a really good entry point to learn assembly. It begins with you designing the hardware from NAND gates. You will make all hardware components like memory, instruction decoder, ALU, and CPU, and put them together into a computer. The next step is to build a virtual machine and then a compiler for a high-level language called Jack. The keystone project is to build a game in Jack and have it run on the computer that you build :) https://www.nand2tetris.org/ https://www.nand2tetris.org/ I have since then ventured into Motorola 68000 assembly coding, by reading an old Amiga course in machine code from the late 80'ties. It's fascinating to learn from an old platform like the Amiga 500. To keep myself motivated, I have written a lot of posts that chronicles my progress through the course. https://www.markwrobel.dk/project/amigamachinecode/ https://www.markwrobel.dk/project/amigamachinecode/ EDIT: I can also recommend this game, that is inspired by NAND to Tetris. Where you build the hardware in your browser :) http://www.nandgame.com/ http://www.nandgame.com/

open86 7y ago

So when do the patents expire on x86? And can we do a clean room version?

screed 7y ago

Start with this one: "Reverse Engineering for Beginners" https://torus.company/writings/RE4B-EN.pdf https://torus.company/writings/RE4B-EN.pdf

karpos 7y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code:_The_Hidden_Language_of_Computer_Hardware_and_Software https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code:_The_Hidden_Language_of...

kristov 7y ago

I'm learning Z80 for programming the rc2014 kit (it's really nice kit if your also into electronics). There is a surprising lack of information online about the techniques of programming. For me that's the biggest struggle. You can know the instructions but juggling registers in an optimal way is hard. I'm currently learning I can use the stack inside a routine to have more values in the air at the same time, but then I read some example code and learn a particular instruction can be used in a clever way to avoid all my stack juggling. I am finding it can take hours to write a simple routine. I really get it now when people write it's a non-trivial problem to map C to assembly (especially Z80). Hell, it's fun though! Screw all these high level languages, let's do everything in assembly and damn the horses!!

znpy 7y ago

"Assembly Language Step-by-Step Third Edition" 3rd Edition by Jeff Duntemann is a great book. It starts with the very foundation and builds up, up to interfacing with C and implementing data structures, still in assembly. Sadly, this book still references 32-bit ISA. My guess is that the author got old enough not to bother updating the book anymore (the first editions of the book were about assembly programming in DOS, then DOS and Linux, then Linux only). Still a very valid book, as x86-64 is backwards-compatible with 32-bit x86. Also, as somebody else has written, once you understand the basics, you can mostly swap things like register names and/or look to the reference pages of your cpu/linker/assembler.

_d03 7y ago

There are some books suited for beginners and these are: 1. https://www.amazon.com/Low-Level-Programming-Assembly-Execution-Architecture/dp/1484224027/ https://www.amazon.com/Low-Level-Programming-Assembly-Execut... 2. http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~ed/assembly64.pdf http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~ed/assembly64.pdf 3. https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Bit-Assembly-Programming-Linux/dp/1484921909/ https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Bit-Assembly-Programming... The first one is somewhat written in "weird English" (Russian English?), but it is still readable. It really helped me with x64 assembly as a C programmer. I have used 2 and 3 as reference most of the time and the first was basically my "main x64 assembly book". I would also recommend getting more proficient in C programming either by studying books such as "Expert C" and the "The C Programming Language" or reading "advanced" stuff somewhere on the Internet, e.g.: http://www.pvv.org/~oma/DeepC_slides_oct2011.pdf http://www.pvv.org/~oma/DeepC_slides_oct2011.pdf The main takeaway in all this for me was learning about the call stack and the different calling conventions which gives you a clue on how recursion works under the hood. Also when you are done learning about "practical computer architecture", i.e. assembly language programming, learn stuff about operating systems as well: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/ http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/ Fun fact: this is not really related to assembly programming, but functions such as setjmp() and longjmp() are used for implementing exception handling.

rawoke083600 7y ago

Stupid question... can you use assembly for GPU coding ? I mean like in a semi-practical way ?

vips7L 7y ago

Not x86_64 but Xeno Kovah's courses were really great to teach me x86: http://opensecuritytraining.info/IntroX86.html http://opensecuritytraining.info/IntroX86.html

justin66 7y ago

Kip Irvine's textbook on the subject is good. It's oriented towards Visual Studio (good, easy debugging) and windows but a fellow student had no problem using Linux tools to follow along and complete the course, which is not a bad way learn. It's useful to at least look at such a textbook to make sure you don't skip any of the easy, sort-of prerequisite material.

Grimm1 7y ago

I learned x86 from Xeno Kovah's course and I imagine his x64 will be just as comprehensive. It looks like his x64 is just slides instead of videos which may be better, sitting through 16hrs of video when I was learning x86 was ... an experience, but a very useful one. Anyway, whenever someone asks this question I don't hesitate to bring up his work and trainings I think they're really useful. I know this is for reverse engineering but if you can reverse engineer x64 you can certainly write it. http://opensecuritytraining.info/IntroX86-64.html http://opensecuritytraining.info/IntroX86-64.html

simonebrunozzi 7y ago

I wish there were an equivalent of "core war" [0]. I "played" with it ~30 years ago and I still remember a good chunk of the language. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War

JTechno 7y ago

x86-64 Assembly Language Programming with Ubuntu By Ed Jorgensen http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~ed/x86.html http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~ed/x86.html

vkaku 7y ago

We also got plenty of general purpose registers in x64, apart from the rax stuff. Plus, you now have the ymm and possibly zmm stuff going on :)

ifoundthetao 7y ago

I enjoyed the Pentester Academy course, and have recommended it several times.

Digg_mov 7y ago

i have no thinkint