I've given this advise before and it may sound really weird but I stand by it. Beginner programmers should read this book: http://www.z80.info/zaks.html http://

I've given this advise before and it may sound really weird but I stand by it. Beginner programmers should read this book: http://www.z80.info/zaks.html http://www.z80.info/zaks.html Yes, it's old. Yes, it's for a non-current CPU. But it explains how a CPU _really_ works, how binary numbers work, etc. It's a fantastic primer for understanding what's really going on inside the machine, and because it is old, it isn't yet burdened by all the complications of modern CPUs. At the same time, learning those will be easy after you understand what was written here. Of course when I read it, I was 15, and sitting behind a Z80-based machine, writing assembly programs by writing them out on a piece of paper, and translating to hex codes by hand... Ah, fun times :-) The biggest thing I ever wrote that way was an RLE cruncher which I had designed myself. You take care of details when you program that way, I can tell you...