Machine Oriented Languages

Machine Oriented Languages

Programming a computer in machine language is an extremely difficult process. Machine language is
tedious, because so much of program code is needed to accomplish even simple tasks. One should
know the internal mechanism of the PU thoroughly to work with it. Machine language also differs from
PU to PU and is difficult to read and modify.

To make the programmer’s job little easier, another type of programming language called Assembly
Language was developed. An instruction in assembly language is in an ‘easy to remember’ form called
a mnemonic.

For example instructions to add, subtract, multiply and divide in machine language and assembly
language might look like as follows

M/C Instruction                            Assembly Instruction (mnemonic)
0000000111011000                                ADD
0010100111011000                                SUB
1111011111100011                                MUL
1111011111110011                                DIV

The main problem with assembly language when compared to machine language is that an assembly
language program cannot be directly executed by a computer. It needs another program to read
assembly code and translate it into machine language. A program that performs this task is called an
assembler.

Development of the assembly language and assemblers placed the programming task in the correct
track, but the programmers did not get much relief as they were still forced to think in terms of bits and
bytes.