Paper-based assembler?

[sharklightning]

In the introduction to chapter 6 of the 2nd edition of TECS, the authors mention the following:

"“If you have no programming experience, you can develop a paper-based assembler. This option is described in the web-based version of project 6, available at www.nand2tetris.org.”

I have scoured the website but found no additional information on this option. Any guidance would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[WBahn]

I also don't see anything mentioned in the web materials, but they haven't yet been updated for the 2nd Edition. I don't know what the time table for that is.

However, assembling a program with pencil and paper is very straight-forward and will really help you understand what your assembler program must do.

Follow the same implementation steps that are in the text, just do the actual work on a piece of paper.

The Basic Assembler has no symbols in it, so you can focus on just understanding how to convert each instruction into the proper strings of 1s and 0s based solely on what is there for each instruction. Start with the A-type instructions and then move to the C-type instructions.

Once you are comfortable with that, the next thing is to add support for labels. Once that is working, add support for variables. Finally, consider how you would deal with comments in the source code and also the various spacings that people might employ to make their code more readable.

[sharklightning]

Thank you that is just the answer I needed, quite helpful!

[WBahn]

Glad that helped.

The authors informed me that the project materials on the website had been updated for the 2nd Edition. The text chapters are still 1st Edition, though.

Also, the tools download has been cleaned of extraneous files that some Apple quarantine software had injected, bringing the total size down from 4 MB to 1.6 MB.

There was also an issue with the Chapter 10 ArrayTest files, which has been corrected.

They will be reviewing and updating the Chap 6 materials on the website to address the Paper Assembler version. I don't have a time table for that.