Coding in Machine Code?

C

chrstrbrts

Member
Hi,

Is it possible to code in machine code?

There are text editors that record 0's and 1's as 0 and 1 in binary and not in their ASCII binary forms.

Could you use those text editors to write a program in machine code?

If so, how would you run it? There wouldn't be a compiler needed at all.

But, you would somehow have to get it into RAM for execution. How would you do that?

Thanks.
 
voyagerfan99

voyagerfan99

Master of Turning Things Off and Back On Again
Staff member
Why would you want to code in binary? That sounds like something one of our former members *Cough* STARS *Cough* would want to do.
 
ScottALot

ScottALot

Active Member
chrstrbrts said:
Just curious. Is it possible? I think the type of editor I mentioned is called a binary editor.

How would you load a binary text file into RAM?
Click to expand...

You can code in Assembly, which is commonly referred to as machine language. It's extremely low level and every bit of code can be translated right into binary.
Pretty simple to learn, all kinds of tutorials out there for Assembly.
For binary? I don't think there's going to be much.
 
strollin

strollin

Well-Known Member
The kind of editor I think you may be talking about is called a Hex editor. Here's a link to one if you'd like to try it: http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htm. It's not really designed for writing code as much as it is designed for editing binary files as opposed to editing text files as most editors do.

For programming in assembly, you only need a text editor and an assembler (similar to a compiler). Here's a link to a site regarding assembly language coding that even has a open source assembler you can download: http://flatassembler.net/.

In college I had to write some programs for an HP 3000 mini computer in machine language. Had to enter the program in binary using toggle switches on the front panel for input and only had some blinky lights for output. Later, I did Assembler Language coding for IBM 370 Mainframes then for Intel x86 architecture. However, I haven't done any machine language or assembler language coding in around 30 years.
 
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