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[Cory Duchesne]

Hey everyone, I thought I share with you my (rather speculative and intuitive) ruminations on machine and assembly language. For months I've been (somewhat casually) trying to attain a "general enough" picture of what machine language is. My current guess is that machine language is essentially patterns or segments of electricity (organized by transistors) and that these patterns or segments of electricity represent (binary) numbers, which can combine to represent other types of data, like letters or arithmetic operators. To some, it might seem like I kind of knew what I was talking about just there, but so much is vague and mysterious to me. And in the same way I have a vague understanding of machine language, I also have a vague understanding of assembly. My current guess is that assembly language somehow maps (or mirrors) machine language. For instance, the two digit decimal number 23 is a symbol used in assembly, and somehow this familiar symbol attaches itself in the “machine language equivalent” (which is the less familiar and more convoluted 5 digit binary number existing as electrical patterns rather than actual symbols you can see). I used the word attaches, but I could have just as easily said, "the symbol 23 wraps itself around the machine language equivalent to 23, which is a pattern of electricity flowing through transistors" Either way, I'm trying to demonstrate that the working relationship between assembly and machine language involves the mirroring of the more convoluted and arcane world of binary/transistor logic (machine language) with the less convoluted and more familiar symbols of “assembly”. By linking the two languages together in this manner so that the actions of one mirrors the other, we can use the more simple assembly symbols as representations or placeholders of the more difficult to read symbols of the machine world. So when we process a command in assembly language, we also automatically process a correlated pattern of electricity (machine language is just segmented patterns of electricity) which mirror the meaning of our initial command. So basically, whatever we do in assembly language is always mirrored by machine language. (If anyone has any better metaphors, please feel free to add)

Anyways, there are my latest thoughts on assembly and machine code. I welcome any constructive criticism or added insights.