ASTRA-256 Assembler

First of all, thanks for the native Linux support. Ok, so what do we have here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WaYYNUCWMY That's not the Assembly most people expect with all these MOVs and MULs. It's inspired by Altair 8800, LGP-30, and PDP-11, machines from somewhere in the 1978-1990 era. It can be interesting for people who like to tamper with such museum stuff. It kinda reminds me of Zach games such as TES-100 and Shenzhen I/O. But there are no missions (yet?), so you just explore the device using the manual (ENG/RUS/UA, by the way) both PDF and in-game text, without "anyone holding your hand", as some people like to say. This is quite an interesting process by itself. I'll definitely recommend this for anyone interested in programming games. This is one of these sadly few "niche" products which require some thinking to be interesting, instead of just feeding you with "content". I do miss some code examples though. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2077855996

[i]Disclaimer: I have had previous assembler language programming experience (hobby) when I owned a TRS-80 Model I computer in the 1980s. This review will be based on that experience.[/i] TL;DR This is a toy for those who have experience writing assembler language programs, and a very well done design of one too. Having said this, if you've never programmed before, or even if you have but use high-level programming languages, the toy can be frustrating. [hr][/hr] This software is basically a programming sandbox. It's a virtual machine based on the Altair 8800 microcomputer of the 1970s. This was a primitive ancestor to the modern laptops and desktops we take for granted where information was presented in blinking coloured lights and sounds. It also used assembler language, which is hexadecimal op code and the native language microcomputers understand (as opposed to C, BASIC, and Python). In it, you write assembler language programs within a 256 byte (not gigabyte, not megabyte, not kilobyte) memory slice. Program flow and execution, arithmetic and conditional operations, data transfer and storage are done through single-byte storage counters called registers. Visual display comes in the form of flashing coloured lights representing the binary notation of a value, which is a representation of values different from decimal notation (in decimal notation, 251 is 2 groups of 10 to the power of 2, 5 groups of 10 to the power of 1, and 1 group of 10 to the power of zero or simply 1). Data entry of both programming and any useful data to read and manipulate is done through an interface not far removed from a calculator keypad. You can enter the program either through the assembler interface which uses the mnemonic representation of the codes (MOVLA instead of 10h) or through the memory address where you enter in hexadecimal values. You can run the program in a step-by-step debug mode or a full execution until an end-of-program instruction is read. Because there's no "screen" to display information, the indicator lights are all you are going to get for output and you'll have to use your imagination on how to present that. Even for those like myself who grew up with a non-pixel 24 row by 80 column monochrome character screen might balk at that. You can save programs you write, and also run programs from other Astra-256 owners through the workshop interface. You're probably asking yourself if you should you get this. If you have previous assembler language experience like myself, this is a revisit back to those days. It's a faithful recreation of a programming environment that both optimised program runtime and memory space while at the same time makes you feel like you are a few seconds away from having a cranial stroke from the challenge. I personally enjoyed it. If you are willing to learn the language computers "speak", and what interpreters and compilers do to your pretty high-level Python code, this will be a great way to learn it. Having said this... If you never learned assembler code programming, or even know how to code a program of any kind, there's no tutorial, just the manual. It's not a bad source but it's not great one either. If you're not a learn-from-the-owner's manual type, this might not be for you, though perhaps someone in the community wrote a guide to help with that. If you like your information readout and display to be in English, there is none. The lights are your guide and there are a lot of them. It's basically a sandbox where you experiment in. The assembler language is fairly robust. b̶u̶t̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶f̶e̶c̶t̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶C̶A̶L̶L̶ ̶m̶n̶e̶m̶o̶n̶i̶c̶,̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶u̶b̶r̶o̶u̶t̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶l̶l̶,̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶e̶x̶a̶m̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶.̶ ̶ Because it's software for a small niche of very sick programmers who enjoy this (like me), your inquiries in discussion might go unanswered for a few days. I recommended ASTRA-256 because of my past experience and it engages me to use something I've learned a long time ago, but stopped using in favour of the high level languages I use now in my past I.T. career and my hobby. To me, it's fun but what is fun for me might not be fun for you. Get it on sale, and try it for 2 hours. If you do not like it, return it. Steam is awesome at handling that up to now.