Assembly Language: The (Sega) Genesis of Programming: CodeMash

You might be surprised at how many video games from the 70s, 80s and 90s looked, sound and played well even though they ran on very little hardware. Many of these games were written using assembly languages. Assembly languages are different from interpreted or compiled languages. The programmer decides which CPU instructions will be executed. Although this was difficult, it allowed game developers to optimize their hardware usage while still maintaining a playable frame rate. Joe Sewell will lead this conference session on assembly programming using the Sega Genesis (aka Mega Drive). With examples of real assembly code from the Motorola 68000 processor, you will learn about assembly languages and the peculiarities of video game hardware. You will leave with a better understanding of computer architecture and the ability to use higher-level programming in all situations.