Machine- and assembly-language programming
Mark I. Halpern · Encyclopedia of Computer Science · 2003
As it appeared in the first and second editions of this Encyclopedia, this article dealt with machine- and assembly-language programming as if they were dead or dying, and the article aspired to do little more than deliver a eulogy before turning away for the last time from something on the verge of extinction. In the third edition, a reprieve was announced--the arrival of the personal computer, typically with no more than 640K of application-program memory, restored the importance of tight code, and with it the rationale for machine language (ML) and assembly language (AL).