Zen of assembly language

What Hacker News says

1. pjmlpAug 2025
   C only got to its performance state, when optimizing compilers taking advantage of UB started being common thing, during the 8 and 16 bit home computer days they were hardly any better than writing Assembly by hand, hence why books like Zen of Assembly Language left such a mark.

   So if we are speaking of optimizing compilers there is MLton, while ensuring that the application doesn't blow up in strange ways.

   The problem is not people getting to learn these features from Rust, glad that they do, the issue is that they think Rust invented them.

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2. ghaffNov 2024
   A fascinating peek into the fairly deep past (sigh) is Abrash's The Zen of Assembly language. Time pretty much overtook a planned Volume 2 but the Volume 1 is still a pretty fascinating read for a time when tweaking optimization for pre-fetch queues and the like was still a thing.
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3. lapsis_beeftechNov 2021
   You might be thinking of "Zen of Assembly Language" or "Zen of Code Optimization" by the brilliant Michael Abrash. I own the latter and in addition to plenty of low-level code optimization advice for the microprocessors available at the time it also includes timer code for DOS that lets you measure code performance with high precision.
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4. jonmalNov 2020
   Michael Abrash! Wow, this brings back some found memories, as reading Zen of Assembly Language.
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5. pjmlpApr 2020
   It is now about 20 years old, but you can start with "Zen of Assembly Language" and carry on with "Graphics Programming Black Book".

   https://github.com/jagregory/abrash-zen-of-asm

   https://github.com/jagregory/abrash-black-book

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6. ArjunaJun 2014
   Wow... for that hardware, a 4.77MHz 8088 PC with CGA graphics and Sound Blaster audio, those stats are overwhelming:

   1. Variable frame-rates up to 60 FPS.

   2. Audio rates to 45kHz.

   3. 16 colors through composite artifacting.

   4. Simultaneous color and B&W output.

   On a related note, you will probably be interested in Michael Abrash's Zen of Assembly Language. From the "README.md":

   "This is the source for an ebook version of Michael Abrash's Zen of Assembly Language: Volume I, Knowledge, originally published in 1990. Reproduced with blessing of Michael Abrash, converted and maintained by James Gregory. Original conversion produced by Ron Welch."

   https://github.com/jagregory/abrash-zen-of-asm

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