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Interest check for a Beginner's-Beginner's Assembly guide


m308gunner

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  I'll admit it. I've been wrangling this Machine Language beast for the better part of a decade, on and off. I'll get a head of steam, plod through tutorials, get something on-screen, and then life will happen and I won't get back into it till the following year (if then). And in the mean time most of what I've learned will evaporate due to disuse. So what I'm proposing is a more "visual" type of beginner's programming guide. A guide for those of us whose eyes cross at walls of black and white text and need a bit more visual iconography to help solidify the more abstract concepts. I did something like this for one of the NA E-Zines (back in late 2015/early 2016). 

  So, would this be something people would be interested in? I would basically be making it as I relearn these concepts myself, so releases would be glacially slow. And I'd need an editor or two who could fact check everything.

  Thanks for any input!

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I'd definitely love to see a set of in depth beginner materials. Nerdy Nights was good and explained some things really well, but certain things like specifics about working with the NES hardware, the start up and initialization part of the program in particular, seemed to be more along the lines of "Just use this block of code" rather than truly explaining what's going on. Also, It'd be great to see ones written for different assemblers rather than just NESASM3. A Solid set of ASM6 focused tutorials would be really nice.

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Grammar
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Thanks for all the input everyone!

  I'm planning on starting at square one with my tutorial series, with an eye on keeping things visually interesting/engaging, explaining concepts in excruciating detail and keeping each
"issue" short and focused. The reason for this is purely selfish. If and when I can't spend the time I would like on learning this stuff, I want to be able to glance back and refresh my memory in a reasonable amount of time. 

  My hope is that the saying "“If you want to learn something, read about it. If you want to understand something, write about it. If you want to master something, teach it.” proves accurate.

  With that said, those of you with experience can look forward to nagging emails from me at some point in the future. I respond well to "I don't have time for this $#!t", "Ask someone else", and "Why are you contacting me?!?". 😉

 

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I'll be posting semi-regular updates on what I'm doing. This will serve to keep myself accountable (to myself 😛) and to let the community know that there is some movement, no matter how small. And in that regard:

I'm in the process of outlining the main topics I'm looking to cover at the outset. Where do I want to start, how in-depth do I intend to go, what concepts should be covered before others, etc. I'm also putting alot of consideration into the presentation aspect, as the visual component is a large part of how I personally learn. I think if I can nail down a graphically interesting presentation it may make the Variable and Subroutine pills (among others) a bit easier to swallow.

I have some notes and sketches from years ago that drew inspiration from the old Nester comics in Nintendo Power. Kind of like how Nester would impart a simple tip for a game, I would show off a programming trick or tip. It's entirely likely I will be mixing my interest in programming with my old passion for cartooning.

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Whipped this up over the course of two nights. It is a VERY ROUGH and shallow proof of concept. It cuts off abruptly on page 3 because I am tired 😛 Just trying to find a tone and direction, so any and all criticism is welcome. Doesn't even have to be constructive criticism.

Missing Pixels Proof of Concept.pdf

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I read the OP but not comments. (Sorry.) I like the idea of a visual learning style. Another thing that helps me is to go over general tutorials that get the point across but are very concise. Follow that up with a well organized “cheatsheet” and I’m up to speed pretty quickly.

Seriously, cheatsheets are like magic bullets. A 1-2 page single document with just the facts can go a long way. Consider adding that as a companion print out and I think it could be beyond awesome.

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1 hour ago, RH said:

I read the OP but not comments. (Sorry.) I like the idea of a visual learning style. Another thing that helps me is to go over general tutorials that get the point across but are very concise. Follow that up with a well organized “cheatsheet” and I’m up to speed pretty quickly.

Seriously, cheatsheets are like magic bullets. A 1-2 page single document with just the facts can go a long way. Consider adding that as a companion print out and I think it could be beyond awesome.

I like it. There are a number of such things out there on the webs, but it couldn't hurt to add one more to the pile of my own making. 

Did you have a chance to check out the pdf I attached in my last post? I'd like as many critical eyes from the community on this stuff as possible.

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Oh man, you really are starting at the beginning!  You have a lot of work cut out for you, but that's a really good start.  It could certainly be a lot of pages to build up to NES Assembler code BUT that's good teaching material, especially for younger kids.  If younger kids can consume it, then anyone can.

I like it.

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On 11/11/2019 at 10:18 PM, m308gunner said:

Whipped this up over the course of two nights. It is a VERY ROUGH and shallow proof of concept. It cuts off abruptly on page 3 because I am tired 😛 Just trying to find a tone and direction, so any and all criticism is welcome. Doesn't even have to be constructive criticism.

Missing Pixels Proof of Concept.pdf 2.39 MB · 16 downloads

I love how visual it is. If you can carry that style throughout the entire thing, I'd say this'll be a hit. 

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On 11/11/2019 at 11:18 PM, m308gunner said:

Whipped this up over the course of two nights. It is a VERY ROUGH and shallow proof of concept. It cuts off abruptly on page 3 because I am tired 😛 Just trying to find a tone and direction, so any and all criticism is welcome. Doesn't even have to be constructive criticism.

Missing Pixels Proof of Concept.pdf 2.39 MB · 19 downloads

I love what you're doing. Keep it up!

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