The Art of 64-Bit Assembly, Volume 1: x86-64 Machine Organization and Programming

Great book

A must read if you are interested in writing assmbly code that communicates with C++ code in a windows envionment.

This is the book

After having read Irvine 7th I had a good knowledge of x32 but soon enough I realized it’s all obsolete so now it’s on to Hyde 64. The hello world program involves interfacing to c++ and assembly/linking with batch commands. Really? I’m using visual studio ide have you heard of build and run? Hyde doesn’t even mention the debugger and without this tool assembly language is impossible. But I was already familiar with this after reading Irvine so I was ok. The following chapters 2 to 9 about 600 pages worth are great so for what I paid the book is 4 stars. Great explanation, lots of complete programs. Now it’s time for parallel processing via Simd and avx and this is chapter 11, over 100 pages of instructions with no examples. It could be useful for reference but actually, no. Amidst all the formats, memory operand and register sizes the actual explanations of the instructions are vague. Well that defeats the purpose of thumbing this chapter as a reference doesn’t it? But where Hyde fails Kusswurm modern x86 begins. If you’ve made it this far sell Hyde, Irvine, and buy Kusswurm. Then you’ll have Jedi powers like me.

Even if not writing assembly code directly, it benefits the high-level language programmer to understand the CPU architecture and instruction set. You can help the compiler do a better job by writing your code with the hardware in mind. When it comes to debugging, it can be helpful to look at things at the assembly level.And if you are programming with SIMD intrinsics, you are still programming in assembly language and understanding the architecture is necessary.This book gets you up to speed with all the above and more.Also, the listing formatting problem that others have mentioned seems to have been fixed. I deleted the months old download from my device, downloaded again, and the listing were now good. Tested on an iPad, a Kindle Paperwhite, and a MacBook Pro.

The best way to review this book is in two parts, 1st a review of the book, 2nd to address the negative reviews about the readability of the code in the Kindle edition which is the one I have.I have several books on Assembly Language, starting with the long out of print 1986 “Peter Norton’s Assembly Language Book for the IBM PC.” Over the years I have acquired several books on Assembly Language. I find Randall Hyde’s book to be hands down the best reference and most in depth book on x86/x64 Assembly language. What I feel separates Hyde’s book from others is it goes into detail on each register and machine function. Which is then backed up with numerous illustrations to help explain the concepts, code, and quizzes to test your understanding.This is not a book for coding beginners on x86/x64 Assembly, IMO, as the author jumps right in with examples that I feel are too complex and too verbose for the novice. To help fill in the gaps alongside this book, I recommend using Mike McGrath’s, “Assembly x64 Programming in easy steps”, which guide the novice with colorful illustrations step by step, on the processor, number systems, linking, and building basic Assembly programs, in byte sized chunks, that are easy to understand for the novice.Also, a basic knowledge of C++ will be needed to use this book, as several example C++ programs make Assembly calls from within the program. Again, I recommend Mike McGrath’s “C++ Programming in easy steps.” For a basic review if you lack C++ knowledge.You’ll need the free IDE Visual Studio 2022 Community edition (not VS Code) with the C++ libraries, as that is where the MASM is located.As for the readability of the code in the Kindle version, there is a workaround which is better than reading the code from the book. A link is provided to download all the code listed in the book in a zip file. Most of the code is organized by listing number from the book. Once VS2022 is on your computer, double-click on the download file you’re interested in and the code will open properly formatted in VS2022 as shown in the attached images. You will be able to interact with the code, which is more productive than just reading from the book.This is an excellent book on x86/x64 Assembly language, looking forward to volume 2. After reading this book, the only way to get further in depth knowledge of the x86 processor IMO is from Intel's massive 4 volume reference.

I'm sorry to say that. Book content is great, but someone did a really poor job when he worked on formatting code listings for kindle edition. I'm on page 66 and soo far most listings has many instructions in one line mixed with comments. This is not usable for learning assembly IMO. Is it possible to get this book with proper formatting in near future?EDIT. 2022-02-14 I'm still waiting for an update that will fix the code listings...EDIT. 2022-07-01 Still waiting for an update...

I initially bought Assembly x64 in easy steps: Modern coding for MASM, SSE & AVX which is an excellent introduction to 64 Bit Assembly. This book however IS NOT an Introductory book - it is more a Reference to X64 Assembly. If you are new to Assembly Programming I suggest buying the introductory book and if you are serious about Assembly Programming then buy this book.