Best products from r/asm

Apple actively discourages people from avoiding their frameworks and linked libraries; there is a reason things like MUSL and µClibc don't exist on OS X. System calls on OS X do change signature without warning, so what's the point? You can't get at the system without using a dynamically linked standard library or keeping to a very small set of [so far] stable system calls like 'open'. Similar problem as Windows and its ever-present DLLs.

The one area where assembly is nice on Mac is in optimization within a C, Pascal, etc program. Because the ISA is x86-64 nowadays, if you don't care about supporting older PPC or x86 archs, you can have a lot of fun doing SIMD code. More fun than in Linux or even Windows? Not really; it's the same thing effectively (in fact, your code will be portable). If you like the platform for user reasons then it's a fine place to start and there's a decent recent introductory book about x86-64 assembly on OS X (and Linux): https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Bit-Assembly-Programming-Linux/dp/1484921909/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498145217&sr=1-1

But writing pure assembly programs in OS X basically has no benefit outside of educational ones compared with mixed C and assembly.

I am going to use this opportunity to advertise my book on low level programming. It sums up the course I've created to teach 2nd graders Assembly for Intel x64 and C on top of it.

https://www.amazon.com/Low-Level-Programming-Assembly-Execution-Architecture/dp/1484224027

It is dense and has a very practical-oriented approach, but it proved to be quite productive: people can use assembly, learn the details easily from documentation alone and produce decent enough C code.

Sample projects my students made:

• Telegram client implemented as a filesystem (FUSE): https://github.com/Firemoon777/tgfs
  
• the Tank game remake on C + SDL:
  https://github.com/taravkov/tank
  Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQIVRSz05Rg
  
  There is a PDF floating around the internet, and a good portion of the book is legally available as a preview on Google Books :)

Apparently the side bar needs additions, there is nothing there for MIPS.

edit Asked a colleague about online courses, Programmed Introduction to MIPS Assembly Language was recommended. Look well paced, and even has little quizzes you take to test your understanding as you go.

Books though, I can help with:

For high level theory and general architecture, the goto book is Computer Organization and Design by Patterson & Hennessy. It uses MIPS for the examples and the circuit diagrams throughout. I think its in it 5th edition. There are a few chapters at the end about where computer architecture is going and such (unrelated to MIPS) that changes between editions. University libraries will definitely have this, possibly even public one. This text is the standard for college-level computer science courses on computer architecture, and has been for something in the ballpark of 20 years.

For practical coding, I'd recommend (See MIPS Run by Dominic Sweetman](https://smile.amazon.com/Morgan-Kaufmann-Computer-Architecture-Design/dp/0120884216). It's in its 2nd edition, which I haven't read, so I don't know if it offers anything more than the first. The [first edition]
(https://smile.amazon.com/Morgan-Kaufmann-Computer-Architecture-Design/dp/1558604103) can be had used for next to nothing. It's especially good if you're writing real MIPS assembly on Linux as opposed to writing it on a simulator.

This book is a pretty good place to start.

I learned in high school ASM for DOS, and this book helped me convert my knowledge to an actual OS. It is also a very good book to start with.

I used this one to learn x86_64 in a self study during undergrad. It was understandable and clear.

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Bit-Assembly-Programming-Linux/dp/1484921909/

I recommend this book for x86-64 Linux based assembly. https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Bit-Assembly-Programming-Linux/dp/1484921909/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517846307&sr=8-1&keywords=ray+seyfarth

Maybe you're not looking for this sort of thing and it's a bit more advanced (expecting you to know C, or Java. Any programming experience will be good.), but it's a goldmine of information and covers a broad range of topics.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0136108040/

From a quick Googling you can find a pdf of the most recent version of it on this guy's Github:
https://github.com/largetalk/datum/blob/master/others/Computer%20Systems%20-%20A%20Programmer's%20Perspective%20(2nd%20Edition).pdf

You can view the raw file to download the PDF.

I have heard this is a great book. It also has practical exercises to sink everything in.

Instructions (from the hard copy book edition): http://smile.amazon.com/xchg-rax-xorpd/dp/1502958082/

; 0x40 assembly riddles

"xchg rax,rax" is a collection of assembly gems and riddles I found over many years of reversing and writing assembly code. The book contains 0x40 short assembly snippets, each built to teach you one concept about assembly, math or life in general.

Be warned - This book is not for beginners. It doesn't contain anything besides assembly code, and therefore some x86_64 assembly knowledge is required.

How to use this book? Get an assembler (Yasm or Nasm is recommended), and obtain the x86_64 instruction set. Then for every snippet, try to understand what it does. Try to run it with different inputs if you don't understand it in the beginning. Look up for instructions you don't fully know in the Instruction sets PDF. Start from the beginning. The order has meaning.