Software Development Systems and Assemblers

Software Development Systems and Assemblers

A software development system is a computer that enables the user to develop programs (soft­ware) with the assistance of other programs. The development process includes writing, modifying, testing, and debugging of the user programs. In the previous chapter, we dis­cussed how to write a simple assembly lan­guage program and translate its mnemonics into Hex code manually. In this chapter, we will de­velop assembly language programs with the help of four other programs: Editor, Assembler, Linker, and. Debugger. These programs enable the user to write programs in mnemonics, trans­late mnemonics into Hex and binary code, and debug the code. All the activities of the com­puter-hardware and software-are directed by another program, called the operating system.

. This chapter describes an IBM PC (Per­sonal Computer)-based software development system, its hardware, and related programs. It also describes its operating systems MS-DOS (Microsoft-Disk Operating System) and illus­trates the use of the assembler to write assem­bly language programs.

OBJECTIVES

· Describe the components of a software de­velopment system.

· List various types of floppy disks, and ex­plain how information is accessed from the disk.

· Define the operating system of a microcom­puter, and explain its function.

· Explain the functions of these programs: Editor, Assembler, Cross-assembler Linker (Loader), and Debugger.

· List the advantages of the assembler over manual assembly.

· List the assembler directives, and explain their functions.

· Write assembly language programs with ap­propriate directives.