Add explanation of Zero and Carry Flags to Help

[topher6345]

Please excuse my ignorance regarding Assembly language.

Can you add an explanation of the zero and carry flags (or are they called registers?) to the Help?

[Schweigi]

Hi

I can do that. Important to know is that those flag registers are used for conditional jumps. The "Conditional jumps" section of the help explains the usage.

Further documentation of the carry and zero flag can be found here:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_flag
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_flag

[topher6345]

I found the Wikipedia articles very helpful. Thank you.

I'm having a lot of fun with the simulator, it's really opening my eyes to how computers work.

Do you have any recommendations for a hardware chip suitable for a beginner to play with assembly language. My friends have the usual arduinos and microcontrollers, but I'm looking for something deeper and more like a hardware version of your simulator

[richardatsap]

I learned on 6502 architecture. I am pretty sure there are emulators around for that (Commodore C64 had 6510 processor, so probably googling for C64 can help). 6502 has a comparable instruction set as the simulator but has a 16bit architecture (afair). This is a quite helpful source:http://www.6502.org/

[topher6345]

@richardatsap I was able to get a hold of a C64 emulator, I need much more time to understand it. The 6502 page was very helpful, and especially the projects pages.

[Schweigi]

I don't know any simple hardware chip where you could execute instructions step by step or see the register values from outside. I guess its only possible with a software emulator.

Another way to play with assembler would be to use a X86 assembler like NASM. There you could write your own little programs or even programs running without a operating system. The Internet has plenty of simple NASM tutorials for beginners.

See:

• NASM (http://www.nasm.us)
• Running your code directly on your computer/virtual machine (http://mikeos.berlios.de/write-your-own-os.html)

[topher6345]

Very helpful. Thanks!