Lab 11 -- Basics of Assembly programming in x86-64.

This page gives an overview of the lecture and the lab session on Oct 23, 2025.

Short lecture summary

• Assembly instructions and need to understand them via an example.

• Assembly basics, Registers and memory access instructions in x86-64.

• Arithmetic and control instructions.

• How functions calls are implemented, arguments passing in x86-64 and activation stack. Roll of stack pointer and base pointer.

Readings

1. Dive Into Systems by Suzanne J. Matthews, Tia Newhall, Kevin C. Webb (Online version)

   

   Read chapter

   • Chapter 6. Under the C: Dive into Assembly
   • Chapter 7. 64-bit x86 Assembly

2. Computer Systems - A Programmer’s Perspective by Randal E. Bryant and David R. O’Hallaron

   

   Read chapter

   • Chapter 3 Machine-Level Representation of Programs

Practise

• Read chapter 3 from Computer Systems - A Programmer’s Perspective and work out the practise problems given there.

• Work out the exercises appearing in Dive Into Systems Chapter 7.

Additional readings

• An x86-64 instructions quick reference.

• Summary of x86-64 assembly.

• Want to do a deep dive in x86 programming ? Check this link on how to write GUI programs completely from scratch in assembly !